Definitions - Dis-identifying and Identification - From "Headlines"

(How the Identifying Process was created)

1. Man is the only unspecialized creation. All others are specialized:

Dogs: smellers, Cats: stalkers Birds: flyers Bees: honey gatherers

2. Man, because he is not fully aware, feels inferior unless he can identify himself as something. The identifying process is a defense against the feeling that he is nothing. He makes gods which he can be a descendent of, such as Zeus, Jupiter, Jove, and Apollo. He then identifies with his god and attempts to be the god he created.

3. Man does not realize the value of the non-specialized state, so he struggles to BE something. He makes himself into things:

An occupation………………………………………………….………"I am a carpenter."
An Ideology…………………………………………………..………"I am a Republican."

Now suggestion enters into the situation, producing a controllable being. For example, "Republicans do so and so. I am a Republican, therefore, I must do so and so." Consequently, his behavior becomes predictable.

4. Another way man, an ever-changing, variable being, can identify with a constant, is by a NAME. Thus, the being strives to become certain and avoid realizing freedom, which is uncertainty.

Example: Two people, ever changing, unpredictable beings, one is named John and one named Mary. The names are constant, but what they refer to are variables. John, in order to be certain, begins to "know" Mary. He creates an image of her in his mind. That image is static, though the living being it refers to is an ever-changing and flowing, living being that cannot be "known."

John no longer communicates with the living being but with the stagnant image he has created.

Mary does likewise with him. To further complicate the issue, they get married. Now both form an image of "marriage" -but these, too, are different images.

His image: Marriage is comfort and peace.
Her image: Marriage is everlasting romance.

These two variables attempt to communicate with each other, but they only communicate with images. Consequently, there is often total misunderstanding. Soon the questions arises, "Can this marriage be saved?" But images cannot communicate with images. They are not in the process of KNOWING each other, each "knows" the other. They are two strangers who cannot understand each other and wonder what has happened. Possibly, if the two living processes could understand, they could undertake the task of dis-identifying from their images of each other and of marriage. This could possibly result in two living processes regaining the potential of communicating with each other in the "changing relationship" known as marriage.

5. The processes of dis-identifying.

A river is known by the name, Rio Grande.
Is it the same old stagnant water or an ever-changing flow with the same name?
When a person takes up the task of dis-identifying, what remains?
Could he then be a human being with potential of originating action, a whole being, perfect (complete) man, an expression of Universal Intelligence?

Would it then be possible to discover a NEW GOOD and unite that with TRUTH to make the NEW MAN?

(also see Tape 3, under "Basics")