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| Joyous | Fearful |
|---|---|
| Desire | Respect |
| Attitude towards what is liked. The Joyous wants to be one with what he/she likes, while the Fearful, driven by self-hatred, wants to keep a distance from it in order to avoid soiling it. | |
| Annoyance | Hatred |
| Attitude towards what is disliked. The Joyous desires to avoid what is disliked. Hatred, on the other hand, is a form of desire, because it drives the Fearful towards, not away from, that which is disliked. Witness how obsessed we are with that which we hate. | |
| Play | Work |
| How we choose to ordain our daily activities. The Joyous' primary concern is the pleasure of the activity, while the Fearful act for the result. See also Anthropogony, C.II. | |
| Fun | Satisfaction |
| The different forms of pleasure. The Joyous enjoy the process, while the pleasure of the Fearful is in the end, after the pleasureable experience. See also Anthropogony, C.II. | |
| Vibration | Stillness |
| Desired state of the Soul. The vibration is constant change, thus it scares the Fearful. This is covered extensively in the Anthropogony. | |
| Perception | Reality |
| Means of knowledge. The Joyous do not accept that there is one and only reality, but only a variety of perceptions of it. The Fearful, instead, will fight to impose one another one's own perception, by calling it "reality" and thus attributing a higher value to it. See also Anthropogony, C.I. | |
| Change | Continuity |
| Desired characteristic of each moment. The Joyous desire and accept change as a necessity and as a means for variety in life; the Fearful, instead, are scared that change be "for the worse" (a notion that is absent in Joy) and resist it. For the Joyous, continuous change is the essence of life: each new moment is really new. | |
| Compenetration | Separation |
| Relationship with other persons and things. The Joyous want to share themselves with the others, while the Fearful prefer to erect boundaries and differences to protect their individuality. In Joy, there is no "mine" or "yours", not because we share things, but because we share ourselves. | |
| End | Passage |
| Relationship with the death of the body. The Joyous do not believe in life after death, but are not afraid to die, because they are part of a more communal being. Only those who see themselves as distict from others are soothed by the promise of an individual afterlife. Death really is the end, but who cares. | |
| Centres | Boundaries |
| How the physical and mental space is organised. Although space itself is a Wą-concept (see Anthropogony, G.I and G.II), the Joyous do not deny its existence: however, they see it as being organized around centres, with no clear boundaries. Thus the Joyous concept of a nation (although there does not seem to be one) would be centered on the capital and fade with the distance, while the Fearful would see it as defined by its borders. In mental space, the same can be said e.g. of the notion of right and wrong: the Joyous would consider, if at all, that there are "very right" and "very wrong" actions, and an undefined space in between; the Fearful, on the other hand, need to define every action as "right" or "wrong". | |
| Restlessness | Contentment |
| State of the Soul in life, as seen by Wą. (?) The Joyous appear to Wą to be in continuous search of change and motion, because they are unwilling to stop and consider that they have "arrived" wherever they wanted to go -- but of course, the Joyous have nowhere in particular to go, their direction is motion in itself. Since stillness is coldness and death, the whole point is to remain in motion, and since there is nowhere that is better than anywhere else, there is no purpose in stopping there. Wą, whose beliefs are based on the notion that it is possible to be in the best place (or in a better place anyway) sees these restlessness as indecision and incapacity to "find one's path". But if there is nowhere to go, what good is a path? | |
| Recklessness | Responsibility |
| Behavior in front of decisions. The Joyous will trust their instincts no matter what they tell them, because in no case there will be a result that is "better" than another. They will just continue floating no matter what life tosses at them. | |
| Forgetting | Remembrance |
| Attitude towards painful experiences. The Joyous do not believe that pain makes you grow any much more than does happiness. Pain and happiness, both part of Joy, do not need to be treasured and cherished afterwards, as the experience they taught will be with you anyway. The Fearful instead conserve their memories as they do their riches. | |
| Impatience | Compassion |
| Reaction to others' pain. The Joyous are in no way attracted to pain - that is one of the downsides of Joy, apparently. When a Joyous is in pain, the others tend to avoid dwelling on that pain, but choose instead to soothe it through their own Joy. A state of pain is when a Soul is most vulnerable to Wą-ness (see Anthropogony, G.V, 11 ff.). The reverse side of the coin is Admiration/Envy below. | |
| Risk | Safety |
| Desired state of expectation. The Joyous love risk, because risk is an expectation of change. The Fearful, on the other hand, prefer safety, which is an expectation of continuing non-suffering. True, exposing oneself to risk can lead to pain, but for those who consider pain a part of Joy, this is a desired state anyway. Better to play and suffer than not play at all. | |
| Admiration | Envy |
| Reaction to others' happiness. When someone you know is particularly lucky or capable, the Joyous react with sincere admiration, because they feel that the other person's happiness will eventually reflect itself on them. The Fearful, on the other hand, since they love the others' suffering, will react with uneasiness at someone else's display of happiness or good fortune. This is the reverse of Impatience/Compassion above. | |
| Sharing | Owning |
| Attitude towards
material things. The Joyous have no particular
desire for possession as exclusion of others from
using something. Sure, they love to surround
themselves with beautiful things and are annoyed when
they are taken from them, but they love to share them...
sometimes going so far as forcing them onto others (a
typical example of today is blaring music coming from car
stereos). The Fearful, in line with their desire for
separation, cannot derive pleasure from something unless
they manage to be its exclusive owners. Their
pleasure derives from the fact that they are not afraid
of losing the thing that gives them pleasure! Jealousy is another key aspect of this opposition: the Joyous will only be jealous about not seeing their beloved, while the Fearful will torment themselves with doubt and rage at the possibility of having to share the loved one. But as a Russian proverb wisely (if somewhat chauvinistically) said: «A woman is like a fountain: there's in it for everyone». For the Joyous, the beloved is like a fountain: as long as there is to drink for me... |
|
| Consumption | Destruction |
| How things are brought to an end. The Joyous never destroy: destruction is a voluntary action effected in order to cause some other structure to exist. However, their recklessness in using things and people for their own pleasure (believing, as they do, that this will eventually increase the world's total amount of pleasure), may consume other people's things and energy. A Joyous could never murder, but she could commit involuntary manslaughter. Or, on a less dangerous note, she would never smash a jar of marmalade onto the wall, but may well finish it and not leave anything to others. | |
| Feelings | Morals |
| How we distinguish right and wrong. This is one of the key considerations of the Church of Joy: see also Anthropogony, G.VI. The Joyous judge right and wrong based on their feelings for something: their moral appraisal is therefore always subjective and not discussed in rational terms. The Fearful, on the other hand, rationalize their feelings and try to establish a common societal moral out of them. This is possible because the Fearful believe in an universal truth (see Anthr., G.II), which can be reached through discussion or through fighting, and in turn causes them to discuss and fight to impose each person's morals on the next person -- or to impose a larger group's morals on a smaller group. There is only one "right" morality, while there are as many feelings as there are people. | |
| Avoidance | Fight |
| Reaction to danger.
The Joyous do not fight. They are so disinclined to what
will make them suffer that they prefer to leave. The
Joyous do not need to destroy what causes discomfort, as
long as they can keep it away from themselves -- because
they do not think that it will necessarily cause
discomfort to others as well. This is a direct
consequence of the Annoyance/Hatred
opposition. If you believe that there is no life after death nor retribution for your behavior, it may make sense, indeed, to postpone solving problems until you die and you stop caring. |
|
| Opportunism | Courage |
| Admired reaction to change. As a direct consequence of the opposition above, the Joyous admire opportunists, while the Fearful admire the brave... and try to create them from out of their midst. Because who is the courageous if not the deluded individual who will sacrifice himself for - what? If there is no higher Truth, there can be no worthy causes, therefore all heroes are fools. | |
| Nomad | Farmer |
| Mythological progenitor. The Joyous recognize the nomad as their mythological progenitor. Nomads skirt the surface of the Earth, dispensing their desire. Farmers, on the other hand, being bound to the earth they toil upon, are natural Fearful. The nomad owns nothing, therefore has nothing to lose -- while the farmer fears change, as it upsets his/her need for regularity and for the predictability of seasons. | |
| Personal | Absolute |
| Nature of reality.
For the Joyous, there is no such thing as an absolute
reality: each individual has his/her own. By recognising
this, the Joyous try to avoid war and fighting, reducing
it to a mere conflict of interest and therefore depriving
it of its reasons to escalate into sheer mutual
destruction. Only if you consider your reality to be the
only possible reality, and therefore to be Truth (Wą),
you can fight for it. In Joy, you only fight for a
practical advantage, and this means hardly ever fighting
at all -- war usually brings overall displeasure. The fearful, instead, conceive of only one Truth, therefore every difference in the perception of reality between two individuals is potentially a reason for conflict: only one reality must prevail in the end. |
|
| Amazement | Comprehension |
| Recognition of acquired knowledge. The Joyous do not need to "comprehend" things, i.e. to reduce them to terms they can verbalize and understand, in order to feel they know them. The Joyous do not need to divide knowledge into compartments or predetermined patterns. The Joyous reaction to knowledge is that of accepting it as a whole, reacting with wide eyes and laughter at the enlightenment. The Fearful instead cannot accept new knowledge until it has been digested and reduced to manageable chunks, until it has entered the pattern of preexisting knowledge, until it is a part of the Machine of Truth. | |
| Confusion | Distinction |
| Temporariness | Eternity |
| Sense | Rules |
| Sympathy | Sacrifice |
| Hope | Control |
| Interpretation | Fact |
| Self | Society |
| Wings | Wheels |
| Chatter | Speech |
| Possibility | Necessity |
| Relaxation | Concentration |
| Suggestion | Convinction |
| Friendship | Alliance |
| Leaf | Rock |
| Yield | Resist |
| Novelty | Temptation |
| Attraction | Ties |
| Giggles | Seriousness |
| Illumination | Reasoning |
| Process | Result |
| Example | Definition |
| Orgasm | Marriage |
| Doodles | Drawing |
| Improvisation | Planning |
| Autism | Communication |
| Practice | Ritual |