Etymology

[rain]

Fantastic post, Stig.

 

A few things to add - the Tonal being in the realm of words... There is a layer below words: I see the Tonal as being the undeveloped 'mind' - its level of awareness is based on its bandwidth - which is 7 (+ or - 2) 'bits' of information... quite simple - but our mind works on between 9 and 5 bits at any one time...

 

So during an average moment in the day if we took a look inside our mind we would have 2 or 3 'bits' having to do with our 'identity' (I'm a salesman, I'm a mother, I'm a friend etc) - 2 or 3 bits to do with where we are (I'm in the office, I'm in the nursery, I'm in the bar etc) - the rest (1 to 3 bits) is used for what's actually going on at the moment (writing an email, feeding a baby, holding a conversation etc)...

 

Of course this is all subject to a lot of flexibility - when people describe what it feels like to be in 'the zone' (or whatever state comes about when we're doing something excellently) - they talk about losing who they are, where they are and any stray thoughts, and all their attention is focused on the task at hand... what happens there (among many other things that I wont bother mentioning now) is the 7 +/- 2 awareness is emptied of useless background noise and is filled with the information required for the task at hand...

 

so what are these bits and how do they work? - well this is it - they're made up of the senses: Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (as well as tastes and smells)... each individual also has varying ratios of these (more visual or more kinaesthetic etc) - there is that general habitual preference, but also different sorts of thoughts require different concentrations of V,A,K... So language, words, internal dialogue etc is based on a variant of A (auditory) it's called 'auditory digital' - which basically means having discreet/separate bits of auditory information. My personal tendency is to have K (kinaesthetic) 'thoughts' (like I really 'get' an idea, or get the feel for a subject) and then I try to 'explain' or translate it to Ad (auditory digital)... It seems to me, from following your posts, Stig, that you have a similar tendency.

 

Then there is the part of us that is on the opposite end of the spectrum - I think you called it Nagal (?) I just know it as my belly. It has to do with eternity, 'everything'... if your mind is a digital clock, the belly is an analogue clock - so it's hard to compare them - if you had to compare the bandwidth - the mind has up to 9 bits - the belly has unlimited amount of bits (but, and quite importantly, it can only ever be aware of all the bits, and can never be aware of only some bits to the exclusion of other bits).

 

For the mind the belly is incredibly frightening - it's like a black hole of nothingness. For the belly the mind is like a narcissistic teenager who's trying to run the whole show - for the belly it's incredibly limiting, and ungraspable. Taoists, however recognise another core aspect. It's the heart.

 

The heart is the middle bit - it helps the mind and the belly find a common ground to communicate. I think the Tonal incorporates a bit of the heart - it's the bit between the heart and the mind that makes up the 'personality'... the heart is to do with emotions, feelings - a bodily sort of awareness... the mind filters incoming and outgoing information through it's 7 +or- 2 processor, and it also creates patterns.

 

The heart communicates in dramatic archetypes - by the time this communication works through all the patterning and personalization that is programmed in by the mind, it becomes a single, discreet, separate 'thing' that the mind can grasp - this is how words come about... so the archetypal quality of 'Heroness' goes up from the heart and through the mind and becomes '50 Cent' or 'Rambo' or 'Luke Skywalker' or 'Lao Tzu' etc... (stories, poetry, art, music works this process the other way round - they take mind-based discreet bits and feed them through the mind, down to the heart - which resonates with this indistinct quality that's already there, and that's why we enjoy these things so much)

 

...so yeah - this is my highly simplified etymology of self...

 

 

freeform!

pretty please share something else than wiki...like

favourite book talking about nagal belly and heart archetypes.

mm?

[Apech]

Indeed it comes from the Latin from "persona" - "human being," originally "character in a drama, mask," possibly borrowed from Etruscan "phersu" - "mask."

 

From what I have learned these "drama masks" were designed specifically to aid in the voice projection of the actors which would link to your "through sounding" meaning.

 

 

Stig,

 

Do you have any good etym. dictionaries. I use

 

Bloomsbury Dictionary of Word Origins - John Ayto (basic but interesting)

 

and

 

'Origins' by Eric Partidge

 

I used to use a dictionary by Wylde but I think its out of print.

[Stigweard]

This is an excellent resource:

 

Etymology Online

 

Cross referenced with:

 

dictionary.com

 

Gets you to the root of things quick smart.

 

Cheers,