Echoes of the Past

T said there were different cultures living in the same community and talking to each other using a common language, but the same words meant different things leading to miscommunication and discord. Her thoughts were that free speech was a legal term and possible if everyone was singing from the same song sheet. Free meant that there were no legal consequences, but now there were social consequences and loss of livelihood through forced resignations or cancellations of events. Her emotions were horror at the changes, every time she heard the instances in the media. Even dictionary definitions were being changed.

When you come across words in conversation or the media, that have changed their meaning from a time earlier in your life, make a note of them. Open and close your mouth. Consider what the original and new meanings represent and how that affects you emotionally. Choose which one you prefer.

J spoke of the words perfect and awesome. which used to be used in a rather reserved sense. When you said perfect, you really meant something that was, in every way, perfect. Now perfect was almost a way of saying yes, I agree with that. If somebody said, Yes, I'm good, it would normally have implied something to do with their moral stance, but it did not mean that any more. It was draining the words of their previous full blooded meaning. As to his emotional reaction to them, he thought it was good. It demonstrated a level of youthful enthusiasm. The word meditation had changed its meaning and become very specialised and connected with all manner of usually Eastern-orientated cults. He thought that was a change that needed unpacking. It did not have much of an emotional charge with him. Generally speaking, he thought the changes of the meanings of the words were in line with the changes in society.

The first instance that occurred to L was the use of the word coffee to refer to decaffeinated coffee, which was not coffee, as there was only a minute amount of caffeine in it. He decided to stop buying decaffeinated coffee. Then he recalled the word policeman, who used to be somebody who walked the streets, looking for disturbances, creating a secure environment. Policemen now no longer walked the streets. Another time, he heard a very noisy car. That used to denote a powerful engine, but now it was often an artificial noise put in by the manufacturer to add some panache to the vehicle. So again, that was a kind of fakery. Then he saw a quote from Robert Conquest. The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of his enemies. One way to attack an organisation was to change the meaning of words.

During the period allocated to responses, nothing was said about specific instances of doing the challenge.

The reading then continued from Chapter 30 of Beelzebub's Tales.

        

With acknowledgements to Harold Good
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From the very beginning of the arising of those theaters of theirs, they assembled and now assemble in them for the purpose of watching and studying the reproductions of their contemporary ‘actors’; no… they assemble only for the satisfaction of one of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, a consequence which had been readily crystallized in the common presences of the majority of them, and called ‘Oornel,’ which the contemporary beings now call ‘swaggering.’

You must know that thanks to the mentioned consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke the expression in others of the being-impulse called ‘astonishment’ regarding themselves, or even simply to notice it on the faces of those around.

The strangeness of this need of theirs is that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others regarding their appearance, which exactly conforms with the demands of what are called ‘fashions,’ that is to say with just that maleficent custom of theirs, which began there since the Tikliamishian civilization and which has now become one of those being-factors which automatically gives them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality.

This maleficent custom for them is that they periodically change the external form of what is called ‘the-covering-of-their-nullity.’

N said that he had met a few actors in his time, and some of them did adopt this kind of swagger because, as the text says, it creates astonishment in other people. Then Gurdjieff builds on this by talking about fashion, and how people wanted to look great and resplendent on the outside and be appreciated as something extraordinary, but they were just covering up their nullity. L said that actors were like clowns, but their productions were dressed up with background stories, in which they would  fall over, swagger, shout and sing. N said some were carried to this extreme, of becoming hellraisers, like Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed, they wanted to go to extremes to show off in front of people. T said the paragraph was alluding to the actors, not in their roles, but outside of acting, almost to make up for the fact that they weren't being themselves in the characters that they were portraying. They were being other people all the time. It was about that difference between being in the play and out of the play. N said they kept on acting, even when it was not required by the circumstances of their lives. L thought the word for what N was describing was overdramatisation. Dramatisation in itself was like making an illusion, but overdramatisation was typified by the actors N had mentioned, or when violence was enacted in a movie.