Ideas are of many types.

Some ideas are concepts. Concepts are entities at the scale of a building (architecturally speaking). They contain smaller entities called rooms. Rooms can still be divided further — and even the smaller entities are called rooms. So each concept is a building, a building that contains smaller rooms within it. Such conceptual ideas are independent structures. If you picturize them on a map, they would touch the earth and soar into the sky. This earth to sky range is very special. Based on this logic, in urban areas some more analogies can be made. Apartment buildings are concepts of a kind, but with a different level of magnification. Each flat within an apartment building can also be classified as a concept. Because behind each closed door of an apartment building, a new unit can be delineated. Every time a new unit can be delineated, its a new sub-concept.

Some ideas are not concepts. Ideas which are not concepts have dependencies on other ideas. To go back to our earlier analogy, ideas which are not concepts are neither apartment buildings nor flats. Maybe, a hostel building is more akin to a concept. The individual rooms in a hostel all are linked to each other by the semantics of function and also by the semantics of hierarchy that exists among the students. Some students are elected representatives and some are not. Some students are figureheads and some are not. This is more akin to a patterned fabric. A fabric which can be zoomed in and out of. Through this magnifying activity —fabric holds patterns together when it is zoomed out and holds patterns apart when it is zoomed in. ‘Unity in diversity’ is the catchphrase. The motifs which are the common and the motifs which inshrine the difference.

So we have come upon three entities now.

1. Ideas which are concepts.
2. Ideas which are not concepts.
3. Fabrics which can hold the two together.

Patterned fabric creates abstractions. These abstractions holds all kinds of ideas together. Ideas which are concepts as well as ideas that are not concepts. This holding together and holding apart need to be understood here. When patterns of lines and dots are zoomed into, pure abstractions emerge. These abstractions are spatial with dots and lines floating about. Concepts and non-concepts when magnified startle us as their components are so primary and end up forming new abstract forms as well.

When different nebulous ideas combine together, something flares up by the benefit of the connection. The sparking up because of the combination of these nebulous ideas is particularly wondrous. Things come together which were never imagined together. This act of creation is truly to be pored deep into. What sense does it make? Patterns which appear to be composed only at a particular scale; recombine in the form of abstractions at different scales. These abstractions are precious. What do they mean if anything? Meaning? Nothing at all. Meaning is overrated. When none is apparent, gibberish is the only option.

Ideas sometimes occur in two heads at the same time. How does this happen? And more importantly why does this happen? Before ideas are born there is smoke and ashes in the air. The idea is born after bits of it are already in the air. This prefaces the idea in a rather interesting manner. In two states rather than one. This also means that we are able to resonate with the idea in multiple ways. If the idea is corrosive, it will take a toll on us. We will no longer be the person we were before we encountered the idea. This phenomenon is very selective and it doesn’t happen for everyone and with all ideas. It is worth noting which people and which ideas this happens with. There is something of a spectacle that attracts the people and the ideas. And this spectacle is very special. What you might know about the effect on humans of firecrackers and beautiful flowers is surpassed easily.

After studying the notes of a thorough study of such spectacles, we can easily say that ideas that have something to do with what we imagine to be ours are corrosive and others are not. What is ours? Where do we draw a line when we are thinking of what belongs to us and to others? This line is variable and cannot be predicted. Corrosive conditions ought to be avoided. This means that thoughts about what is ours and what is not should be avoided or taken lightly because they are corrupting in nature. “See the world as one.” Everything is shared, there is no personal belonging, least of all property. These are the words of someone who has succeeded in rising above personal ownership as a criteria for the measure of affection that is extended towards the world and its objects.

Ideas and where and how they emerge have nothing to do with their ownership (if they are owned at all). We might know well about where an idea has emerged from but that has nothing to do with who owns it. There are those who talk about intellectual property and instead there are those who talk about a Creative Commons — they deny the context of ownership entirely. Both factions think of ideas as a kind of capital — one as a personal kind of capital that can be possessed and the other as a universal kind of capital which we are always borrowing and repaying but which has a value that only resides in its circulation. Such a form of capital multiplies when it circulates but reduces when its circulation is limited. What do we do with such a value? How can circulation happen without ownership?

And then what about value that does not enumerate itself in the form of capital? Such a value is fragile, without a voice and without a denomination. Value like this can be likened to the value that poetry possess… and maybe also to the value that resides in gaze-worthy eyes.

Ideas float around in the air. There is no reason to know how to implement the idea just because you got access to the idea itself. A million different ways exist for implementing each idea that you come across. But which of these ways are going to be yours. That is the question. With so many options, actors need to constantly be alert and vigilant. They cannot afford to make mistakes. So besides access, actors also need a schematic of the future. Which action will lead to which consequence? How will their personal story shape? All actors who hope to end up with an outcome that they can live with, need to have answers to this questions. Others do too — because being an actor means you want to play to win. It means you do not have any emotions invested in the game. Actors who have emotions invested in the game are called agents. They care about the nature of the outcome of the story and they play an active role in shaping the story so that it turns out ink the way they desire it. Such agents can’t be trusted at all. They will do whatever they can to get results as needed.

This fundamental difference between actors and agents is the difference to be discerned when an event is being investigated. Events can either to be random and without a story that can allow them to happen or they can be part of intricately woven dense narratives that explain them. We don’t care either way. We just care for the stories that our agents on the field eventually spin and the reasons they give to them. The active agents are the only entities who have the will and the means to change the direction of stories. On an active field — there are all kinds of agents. Some on our side and some representing our opponents. What motivates them? What is the material nature of their will to change and morph itself? We don’t know this very well. We don’t know what makes the steely will, that agents have, to change. It might be manipulation, it might be drive, it might be a gumption for fortune telling. Some of these beliefs might be within our scope of things that we can do and some not. But either way belief is the factor here that can make a switch happen.

Coming back to our initial question now — how will the story unwind? We don’t know. To know this we have to get into some level of fortune telling ourselves and how that happens is out of scope of this text. We cannot just rely on manuals because manuals cannot possibly exist for what is essentially a pseudo-science and something that you might even call plain Jane mackerel. Just like fish survives on a very rigid set of conditions so does fortune telling. We cannot go anywhere close to acknowledging it a way of finding out the truth.

How do stories capture the mental state?

Stories sometimes originate with specific ideas. But most times they just combine with other ideas of similar character and make a nice mixed-up entity. This mixed-up entity very closely resembles a fable or a myth and very few know what they mean. In fact because very few know what this mixed-up entity means, they are deemed similar to a myth or a fable. Dealing with this overall blurred entity casts a sharp filter onto all our actions. Deluded by this story we do not know what we are doing anymore. Everything seems to be a smog of ambiguity that never clears up. What is to be done? The situation seems like a compass performing a spin without seeming to be on the verge of calming down. In situations such as these there are two possible eventualities. Either you get used to blindly navigating the wonderland. Or you become a seeker of truth who cannot look beyond the delusions that have overpowered his/her senses anymore. Seeking has only one problem. The target: ‘what to seek’, is not well defined and often the medium is thought to be the replacement for it.

What is the medium? The teacher’s voice. The teacher is the guide, but end up becoming more than that. The teacher’s mental state is captured by his/her speech. Even for the teachers who do not try to develop a personal aura around his/her it develops on its own. When the teacher’s community of followers starts growing beyond a certain size just for the benign purpose of identification the teacher is forced to assume a personal role. If not willingly, to assume the qualities of a good leader, definitely. Stories now told or shared by the teacher after this point are done so through the teacher’s assumed voice. The teacher does not remain anonymous any more. The more the teacher wants to remain absent, the more present s/he becomes. This presence is intense, and is defined by the seeker’s questions as well as the teacher’s answers. The teacher’s intense presence gains intensity from audience’s investment of attention as well as the objective of avoiding confusion. A teacher who does not assume the absolute and exclusive truth in his/her public addresses will find that the audience needs surety as well as confidence in the teacher’s addresses to accept them.

Else the teacher as well his/her teachings will not be accepted. And this surely be a tragedy. As the popular adage goes — if confidence coincides with surety the world would be a different place. Seekers get more relief from their world actually changing in a small way than finding out that their world is destined to remain the same.
Here is where teachers and the confidence that they wear easily is effective. But pupils need not accept everything that the teacher professes. The only commitment that they have made is to process everything through their mind before accepting it as true.