Thursday, February 7, 2013

Metabolism VI - The Mask of Adrenaline, the Immortal and the Conflux


An example which can provide more insight into how this works is the Jay and his natural masks as compared and contrasted with the Mime.


The Mime is at the 'Forgetting' stage of the Metabolism of Time and the Jay is at the 'Remembering' stage.  As I mentioned in the previous post on Masks, positive attention (praise, compliments) drives the mask up the diagram and negative attention (criticism, slander) drive the mask down the diagram.  The mask changes to be the one associated with the new position and as such is not the natural mask of the character in question; this can cause problems if an unnatural mask is maintained for a long period of time.  Normally however, the underlying character takes action to restore the mask to its natural state - by seeking either negative or positive attention to address the inbalance.


THE JAY - ADRENALS (ADRENALINE)
y looking at the diagram we see that the flow of 'Time' is naturally negative for the Mime (as forgetting), and naturally positive for the Jay (as remembering).  In practical terms this means that the Mime is more responsive or sensitive to negative attention (more likely to take criticism to heart) and the Jay is more responsive to positive attention (more likely to take praise to heart).  This is an important practical point and once a character has been recognised by their physiognomy, the specific attention required to solve problems (inspire, motivate, comfort, advise, etc) can be easily discovered.

THE IMMORTAL -
NATURAL MASK
OF THE JAY
The natural mask of the Jay is the mask of the Immortal - this behaviour is the opposite of the natural mask of the Mime which is the Lover.  Its a stoic mask which does not particularly like to be touched (the adrenaline of the underlying character makes tempers flare easily, and makes the person quite jumpy),  and it feeds off the buzz of shared identity - typical behaviour is the resistance to any kind of alien invasion of the group, and reiteration of group identity amongst others - i.e. sports team, business or company, patriotism, etc.  It will also continuously reaffirm its own role or status in the group and gain attention this way.

The astute reader will then note it is easier to transform an Immortal into a Dreamer (the natural mask of the Prisoner/inner mind) and to transform a Lover into a Vampyr (the natural mask of the Many Mannered Mind Man/Altered Past) than vice versa, through the application of attention.

THE DREAMER
Both of these characters become Dreamers when excessive positive attention is applied - the unnatural mask of the Dreamer here will be corrected in typically one of two ways.  Either, saited, the Dreamer will literally digest the positive attention and just not seek out any more positive attention until the effects of the excess have worn off *OR* the Dreamer will manifest messianic hubris, bouts of egocentrism that are so *ugly* that they attract negative attention from other characters.

THE VAMPYR
Both of these characters become Vampyrs when excessive negative attention is applied - this unnatural mask is typically corrected in one of two ways also.  Either, hurt by the criticism or slander, the character retreats, lurks and finds a suitable individual for obsession and mesmerism - they will lock eyes with such a person and feed on their attention and focus specifically to restore the balance *OR* they will attempt to use a kind of 'Vampiric' glamour to create a 'herd' of 'thralls'.  Again this fairly pathological behaviour will cease when the mask is restored to one natural to the underlying character.

These are fairly extreme descriptions (forgive the hyperbole) and the reality is that most individuals do not encounter such excess on a day to day basis and the behaviours and the swing between states as attention fluctuates is much more mild in its manifestation but it is of this nature.

QABALAH

Information relating to the Jay is associated with Hod.

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