popup #3 // I was wrong about the sword!

Silly me. I’m ever so slightly dyslexic, you see. So when I was using a Divination Scroll¹ to identify the “enchanted-looking short sword” that 9.2% of you chose, it seems I fumbled the read.

The “enchanted-looking short sword” was not cursed with Main Character Syndrome. Not necessarily. Instead, it just provides a mild temporary boost to “Main Character Energy”.

There’s an important distinction here.

Main Character “Energy” is something the book I am writing will rekindle and restore within you. But it will be tempered with oh-so-many supple sensibilities to ensure it doesn’t warp into Main Character Syndrome.

Psst—if you are new to this pop-up museletter, welcome! I have just activated “the archives”, as I suspect this epistle mightn’t make the most sense without context. The archives are a tad ugly at the moment, but they should bring you up to speed. Come April, I’ll decide what to do with this little experiment. I’m glad you’re here.

A quick aside: on “swords”

There are times when we need to be decisive; to de–cide. That is, to literally “cut off” other pathways and possibilities, so as to narrow our focus.

The sword is symbolic of this. As well as of the phallus. Swords cut through. To be “clever” is to cleave.

But it is my sense that, in society, we have over-indexed in “the masculine urge” to narrow our focus. To measure and categorise. To draw lines in the sand, to make claims, and to arbitrarily decide what we do and do not care about.

We need to be careful with swords, and other sharp things.

I recall a song from TOOL called “The Grudge”.² It speaks very much to “Swords vibes”. Here’s a snippet.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate
Desperate to control all and everything
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen³

Clutch it like a cornerstone, otherwise it all comes down
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end
Clutch it like a cornerstone, otherwise it all comes down
Terrified of being wrong, ultimatum prison cell

Saturn ascends⁴
Choose one or ten⁵
Hang on or be humbled again

The tools we use tend to have a skeuomorphic effect on our realities.

Hold a camera and you begin to “see” reality through the lens of potential photos. Hold a pair of birding binoculars and you begin to sense bird movement in the middle-distance. Hold a hammer and, well, everything begins to look like a nail.

Hold artificial intelligence, and suddenly—if you’re not careful—you’re getting it to do all your communications for you. (What did Gandalf say about the Palantíri?)

Hold a sword and lo! we carve The Greater Gestalt and entangled experience into clever categories of this and that.

Those who live by the sword, tend to die by the sword. But maybe it’s just ego-death.

The Humbling.

(This theme will feature a little in the book!)

Main Character Energy (not syndrome)

It’s good to feel special, and to know that you might assert your will so as to influence and enact change. But there is a kind of “sincere irony” to the “ironic sincerity” we might bring to such. The key is to play the our finite games with provisional seriousness, whilst remembering the infinite game we play, and the infinite players we (all) are.

This might resonate instantly if you are well-versed in Finite and Infinite Games. But it’ll take some appropriate nuancing if not. The book can handle the deftwerk in this matter. But for now I would like to share with you this old quote from Frank Herbert’s DUNE. Forgive the “he” this and “man” that; it was a different time.

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”

The key insights here are:

• The sense that “greatness is a transitory experience”. We might all have our moments to ‘affect’ things; but those moments don’t endure forever. Most of the time will be in support of others. I appreciate that this doesn’t deny “main character energy”—but it also doesn’t anchor it (which is the syndrome-form).

• The acuity for the greater mythopoetic gestalt; you must have a feeling of the myth you are in; a sense of how you manifest in the stories of others. Most will only know of you via reputation and deed, and by the few encounters they have that will either affirm or complicate this impression. Best to stay grounded, and be kind. (Always, regardless.)

• You must maintain an ironic distance to all of this; a sardonic (or: amused) sensibility that ensures you never become ensnared by your own pretensions. This way you can ‘inhabit greatness’ without believing too deeply in your own (other other’s) mythic projection. The last thing we want is for your authentic performance to harden into brittle self-importance.

These sensibilities might allow us to have “Main Character Energy” without “Main Character Syndrome”.

Be more poet (if you want to)

If there was one book that has most inspired and influenced my work—and this is a very tough call, because many books have—it would be Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. I know this comes as a big surprise.

A secret mission I have with the book I am writing is to bring some appropriate honouring of Carse’s work into the world.

There’s a particular passage that speaks to what my book is gesturing towards: stepping into the sensibilities of The Poet.

“[…] poets do not ‘fit’ into society, not because a place is denied them but because they do not take their ‘places’ seriously. They openly see its roles as theatrical, its styles as poses, its clothing costumes, its rules conventional, its crises arranged, its conflicts performed, and its metaphysics ideological.

We are living in a time betwixt worlds. The old paradigm is collapsing (“The Great Unraveling”, in Joanna Macy’s words), and our new world is yet to emerge. If we remain meek and compliant, it might be that we collectively descend into a corporate-authoritarian dystopia for a while. But “The Great Turning” towards a more beautiful world—a world more curious, kind, and conducive to the flourishing of all-of-life—is yet possible.

It will take some wit, wisdom and wiles to bring it about, though. And maybe some transitory greatness, too (in service to the greater whole).

This is not the pop-up museletter series I thought I would write 😅

Yet this is what has emerged. I’m realising that, even as I write this, I want to involve more of you. I’ve really enjoyed receiving the notes of encouragement and the questions via direct email. And now I am thinking about how I can re-enable comments over at foxwizard.com, and to maybe (finally) take membership quite seriously.

Big ideas are brewing; I will keep you in the loop.

In the next issue: I will share the working title of the book (for real!), along with a tentative outline. There’s some magic I must yet preserve (some spells don’t work if they are spelled out) but I am hopeful that, what will follow will give you a proper ‘sense’ of the book (to complement the gist I have thus far hinted at).

I am grateful for your assistance in warming up this new email address.

Whilst we are here, I ask the following question with no clever “gotcha” tricks or what not. We all need access to all of the magics, at different times in our life. But, indulge me.

With the “Magic: The Gathering” colours of mana in mind…

Thanks so much for reading, I really appreciate it. If you have any questions, you can reply directly to this email. If you have a friend who might like to slink in, they can subscribe via foxwizard.com/popup-museletter 🧡

Warmth,
Jason