Perhaps it may be easier to understand the point if we first realize the fact that the ideas with which we deal in our apparently disciplined waking life are by no means as precise as we like to believe. On the contrary, their meaning (and their emotional significance for us) becomes more imprecise the more closely we examine them. The reason for this is that anything we have heard or experienced can become subliminal that is to say, can pass into the unconscious. And even what we retain in our conscious mind and can reproduce at will has acquired an unconscious undertone that will color the idea each time it is recalled. Our conscious impressions, in fact, quickly assume
an element of unconscious meaning that is psychically significant for us, though we are not
consciously aware of the existence of this subliminal meaning or of the way in which it both
extends and confuses the conventional meaning.
Of course, such psychic undertones differ from one person to another. Each of us receives any abstract or general notion in the context of the individual mind, and we therefore understand and apply it in our individual ways. When, in conversation, I use any such terms as "'state," "money," "health," or "society," I assume that my listeners understand more or less the same thing as I do. But the phrase "more or less" makes my point. Each word means something slightly different to each person, even among those who share the same cultural background. The reason for this variation is that a general notion is received into an individual context and is therefore understood and applied in a slightly individual way. And the difference of meaning is naturally greatest when people have widely different social, political, religious or psychological experiences. As long as concepts are identical with mere
words, the variation is almost imperceptible and plays no practical role. But when an exact definition or a careful explanation is needed, one can occasionally discover the most amazing variations, not only in the purely intellectual understanding of the term, but particularly in its emotional tone and its application. As a rule, these variations are subliminal and therefore never realized.

One may tend to dismiss such differences as redundant or expendable nuances of meaning that have little relevance to everyday needs. But the fact that they exist shows that even the most matter-of-fact contents of consciousness have a penumbra of uncertainty around them. Even the most carefully defined philosophical or mathematical concept, which we are sure does not contain more than we have put into it, is nevertheless more than we assume. It is a psychic event and as such partly unknowable. The very numbers you use in counting are more than you take them to be. They are at the same time mythological elements (for the Pythagoreans, they were even divine); but you are
certainly unaware of this when you use numbers for a practical purpose. Every concept in our conscious mind, in short, has its own psychic associations. While such associations may vary in
intensity (according to the relative importance of the concept to our whole personality, or according to the other ideas and even complexes to which it is associated in our unconscious), they are capable of changing the "normal" character of that concept. It may even become something quite
different as it drifts below the level of consciousness.

I APOLOGIZE
I LIVED ON LOTUS FOR TOO LONG
I GREW FATTER THAN VEAL TO SLAUGHTER
I SLEPT WELL AND DREAMED OF PEACEFUL WOODS
THIS IS UNBECOMING OF A MESSIAH
YOU LAY DORMANT
YOU SPRAWL ALONG DISUSED DIRT ROADS FOR WEEKS
YOU FANCY (IN A DREAM) THAT MAYBE IT IS NOT WORTH THE EFFORT OF WAKING
YOU COME SO CLOSE TO BECOMING NAUGHT
YET YOU AWAKE OVER AND OVER
HERE WE ARE AGAIN
SHOOTING FLARES INTO THE INKY DARKNESS
AT THE END OF DAWN

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