Same Time
Holding two opposing views in the mind is a critical skill to be honed—an important tool for smoothing the path of life as one meanders along.
The Japanese have mastered this through the default values embedded in the structure of their language.
A striking example is the societal protocol of honne and tatemae—a crucial skill for navigating Japan’s ancient hierarchical system while maintaining a semblance of sanity.
Here’s a lucid example of tatemae in action between a married couple—an effort to keep peace and maintain harmonious matrimony, the rock-solid foundation of any emerging neo-clan family.
Tatemae version:
Wife: Does this dress make me look fat?
Husband: Of course not honey. Honestly, it makes you look even all the more marvelous.
Wife: I love you.
Husband: Me too, sweetheart.
Hone version:
Wife: Does this dress make me look fat?
Husband: Looks like you’ve put on a couple of kilos, eh… Lil Ms. Tubby.
Wife: I want a divorce.
Husband: Was it something I said?!
This is also a primary example of the useful Japanese protocol uso mo hōben—噓も方便—where a small fib may be justified by circumstances.
Furthermore, it’s a great moment to sprinkle in some sha kō ji rei—社交辞令—polite or diplomatic way of putting things—you won’t be sorry
Sometimes, honesty is definitely not the best policy—as we can now plainly see.
In fairness, The Big Girl often says that the Incidental Occxie—a mountain savage who stinks of butter—always says more than necessary.
A valid point, to say the least, as this is the fundamental nature of the Incidental Occxie mother, the exquisite Maggie May.
Also of note—excuses are highly disdained in the mind of the stoic Japanese—indeed, making excuses to cover one’s failures is regarded as feeble and weak.
The structure of the Japanese language has many elements designed to appease and please—mitigating the possibility of a wellspring of angst flowing from the Disastrous Mouth and verbose sputum being spewed.
One must always read the room.
Anyone who’s worked in the pressure cooker of a corporation knows the tyranny of the quarterly—a perpetual short game filled with urgent emergencies of the most mediocre kind—frazzled system clones ground down over time.
That is why it is imperative to hold two thoughts in the mind at the same time—one to fulfill time-sensitive obligations while keeping the in view the personalized long game.
The notion is for a unanimous motion to suspend spacetime—in order to see inside the infinite mind.
Having a personalized long game requires deep self-reflection and a Dilbert Sensei style brain reframe, moves you to the next stage of life’s game.
By doing so, you declare the all-important self-love—critical self-care and a reason for being, ready each day to jump into the industrial fray—while holding a variety of views, some complementary, some contradictory.
Remember, material sludge is a constructed reality of someone else’s vision and dream.
Shift your energy toward the destiny chosen by Seity—to change the spirit of the mind, aligning to an existence, ephemeral becoming the essence of the sublime.
It is human nature to change one’s mind and to hold opposing views about the direction of one’s life and how to spend fleeting Earth World time.