FULL SPECTRUM CULTURE

[Well, after a few attempts at mucking around in the MYSQL database followed by a frantic restoration from backup each time, I have resigned myself to the fact that all the new categories I am about to introduce will not be perfectly ordered and numbered, mostly because the latest version of WordPress will brook no tinkering behind the scenes, at least in the way to which I had become accustomed. Ah well, I shall let it be. Though my geek's heart sighs at the near chaos of it, the subject matter excuses a certain amount of mild disorder. Without further ado...]

Finding that the current realm and interaction categories left something to be desired when it came to describing emotions, I let things simmer in the old noggin for a while, reading and wondering what to do. After pondering and trying it out for a while, I think I have found a solution based on some old ideas and some more modern additions.

I admit that a lot of the motivation behind seeking and finding these new categories comes from the desire to implement my ideas in a fictional setting, and that without them any fictional setting would be cold and disembodied.

For in order to be embodied, ideas must inhabit the stuff of the world, and it was this very stuff of the world that I was seeking. When it comes to making a world from scratch, what does one make it out of? I was in search of the elemental things: a system of describing embodied and emotional things that is at its root simple, but given free reign can lead to emergent and complex behaviors. I’m not claiming this to be any great discovery of anything, just my own personal means of trying to understand the things around me, probably to be used in a fictional setting if the Lord is willing. I have yet to determine what visual cues I want to use on this website to represent these things, but here they are:

• Light represents the force of Good in the world.
• Animal is the element that represents active life
• Plant is the element that represents passive life
• Fire represents anger, wrath, choler, bile.
• Wind is the embodiment of happiness, sanguinity.
• Water is the stuff of melancholy, sorrow, mourning.
• Stone represents slow, solid, phlegmatic impassiveness.
• …and Vacuum represents the force of Evil in the world.

These elements interact in the world, of course, and with the exception of Light and Vacuum, can be largely indifferent in the grand scheme of things, so I sought to find words that would be sufficiently neutral and still represent the full spectrum of possibilities:

• “Secured” means that the element is firmly established without a viable contender in the situation in question.
• One element may Foster another, that is encourage it in its essential nature or function.
• One element may Restrain another, or keep it from getting out of control without interfering with it natural inclinations.
• …and one element can Disrupt another element, or interfere with its natural place, function or inclinations to the point that it is at a high risk of being…
• Failed: the state in which an element loses it nature and the specific manifestation of it in question ceases to exist.

[All that said, I don't know if this isn't just a rewording of the "Relating / Checking / Invading" scheme and that one won't supplant the other over time.] I realize this all sounds somewhat medieval or something, but keep in mind that its primary purpose is for systematizing and symbolizing emotions and characteristics of nature that can’t be described in the purely logical terms of the Seven Realms.

These categories will show up mainly in the scriptural explorations of this site for now, because I want to understand how and where they appear in God’s Holy Word before I do much of anything else. Anyway, I just wanted to bring it up, in case you were curious as you watched these posts go by, for whatever strange reason that you’re watching me do all this.