"After our Spacetime User Interface filters out nearly everything, showing us only a tiny subset of Reality, our Narrative Lens comes along next and once again filters out almost everything within the already tiny subset. Our Self Limiting Beliefs then deal a final blow to Potential by dictating to us What Is Possible.
As oversimplified as SpaceTime is, it still presents us with an array of things we could potentially pay Attention to that is functionally infinite.
As we sometimes experience with children, when every bug on the sidewalk is an absolute miracle to be explored, it is hard to go anywhere.
So what our Mind seems to do is explore things, categorize them, and then ignore them unless they matter.
The key therefore, is to Consciously understand how our Mind determines What Matters and Why, and then guide our Mind towards the Most Enlightened and Truthful understanding.
By the time we grow out of childhood, we no longer encounter Divinely inspired awe with each bug we pass, leaf that flutters down, or puddle we step in. We simply walk down the sidewalk, ignoring and perhaps even trampling on the category of things called bugs and leafs and puddles. If we do briefly notice a bug or a leaf, unless we really stop to look at that unique instance, we are not really seeing that bug or that leaf.
This bears repeating. Unless we really stop to look at that unique instance, we are not really seeing that bug or that leaf.
Our Mind is actually doing (something like) simplifying by perceiving patterns and recalling images from our memory that approximately fit the pattern, and then layering the stored images over the Reality.
That is all to say that while we might think of ourselves as “seeing” Reality, it is more accurate to think of ourselves as Perceiving an extremely foggy and low resolution overlay papered over the top of an infinitely complex field of consciousness, information, and energy, associating and dessociating itself into and out of various forms.
So, out of the infinite array, what determines what few elements of Reality manifest themselves to our Conscious Perception?
Out of the endless trillions of potential pieces of information we could pay attention to in a given day, what determines what tiny fraction actually appear to us?
This is perhaps the most critical lesson we could learn.
What Manifests itself to us is determined by What Matters.
What Matters is brought into the light of our Perception.
What Does Not Matter stays hidden in the Darkness, right there in plain sight.
However remember that What Matters and What Does Not Matter are not objective components of Reality. They are determined by a Narrative Framework that exists only in your Mind. That Narrative Framework informs a Narrative Lens that is entirely unique to you.
This means that the tiny subset of ultimate Reality we consciously Perceive is subconsciously dictated by a subjective hierarchy of Value or Relevance, which is implied by the Story we are telling ourselves.
What Matters, what has weight, what has worth, what has importance, what is significant, what has Value, orders itself out into a hierarchy of perceived importance.
Our hierarchy of perceived importance, relevance, or Value informs our Structure of Value.
Our Structure of Value determines what we want to Attend to.
What we want to Attend to determines what we Perceive.
What we Perceive determines the subjective reality in which we exist, and limits the things with which we can interact.
Our Structure of Value could not possibly be any more important, for it literally shapes our Perceived Reality, and therefore our Destiny.
Because a Structure of Value implies a ordered hierarchy, and because an ordered hierarchy implies a relative comparison of Values / Goods, and because a relative comparison of Goods implies wise Judgment against an objective or Ultimate Standard Of Goodness…
Each act of Perception, every moment of every day, is actually a Moral and Ethical decision.
The fundamental act or responsibility of Perception is our first ethical decision.
Looking at it from the bottom up:
What is relatively important to an individual microcosm in a sea of infinite complexity depends on what it is trying to accomplish or where it is trying to go.
What we are trying to accomplish and where we are trying to go relates to our total nested hierarchy of issues, goals, and values.
How we integrate and hierarchically nest our goals is a moral decision guided by and informing of our Structure of Value.
Our Structure of Value is implied by our Story.
Our Story usually lays itself out as a Quest towards an overarching and uniting Goal.
Therefore, what you choose as your highest overarching and uniting Goal, the "Holy Grail" of your Quest, literally determines how the universe will manifest itself to you.
This is functionally true because you will only Perceive the 0.1% things in your immediate surroundings that Matter.
What Matters are Values, or things that help you onward towards The Goal, and Anti-Values, or things that harm or hinder your progress towards The Goal.
Values and Anti-Values. Tools and Anti-Tools. What Matters and Why.
These are the governors of Perception, all structured within your Narrative Framework.
Outside the 0.1% of Reality you can perceptually and intellectually deal with, is the other 99.9% of Reality. The totality of all that objectively is.
Because what is outside of your perception is so vastly greater than what is within your perception, and because your perception is shaped by Values...
...there is no more important question than What Matters / What has Value and Why.
And What Matters Most / What Has Greatest Value.
We call this the Meta Value, that by definition contains within Itself and orders all other Values and Goods.
It is the Foundation of the Meta Story."
Forward to 2.10 Making Our Subconscious Story Conscious
Back to Lionsberg Wiki Books/The Book of Lionsberg/Chapter 2 - The Quest to Perceive/2.8 Self Limiting Beliefs
Back to table of contents The Book of Lionsberg