The problem I have always had with communicating with un-centered people is that whenever the topic turned to soft subjects their thinking became silly, if not insane. Before I recently heard the terms reductionist and constructionist thinking I used the terms top down and bottom up thinking. Math, for instance, is hard. 2+3 = 5, always has, always will. So, unless scientists discover a new number. (the bleem, it comes between 6 and 7 – Woody Allen) Math is a done deal.
The psyche is different. If you are trying to understand a frog, you cut it up and try to understand the pieces. You are dealing with a known. Top down works great here. This only addresses the how. If on the other hand you want to know why, it is necessary to take a more holistic view. Consideration must be given to evolution, environment, ecosystem, niche, mating, food, sex, competition, dangers etc. Top down doesn’t address these issues. Bottom up works here.
In psychology, for instance, there is no frog to cut up. It is an unknown. There is no way you can know what combination of events has led to a particular behavior pattern. Each person is unique, with his own unique environment, hopes, religion, education, experience, dreams, triumphs, failures etc. It is not possible to determine which combination of events caused a particular behavior pattern. It is insane to try. Yet people do. This results in simple concepts exploding into byzantine labyrinths of illogic. Psychology with it’s id, ego, sub-conscious, psychosis’, neurosis’, and all kinds of weird concepts made up to give the illusion of understanding.
Take for instance centering. The concept is simple; “me”, That lone two letter word says all there is to know about centering in bottom up thinking. It is an identity. Integrally implied in the concept of the “me identity” is awareness of self, (I like me, I want to stay me, I don’t want to be anyone else) etc. Even the lowliest life form has a me. ie, Even bacteria are centered. Yet when top down thinking is applied to this concept it explodes into self worth, esteem, pride, moral compass, religion, ethics, philosophy, spirituality etc. which explodes into libraries full of self help books.
Back to the un-centered, their “me” has been displaced, overwritten, co-opted, whatever. It’s still there, always has been, always will be. To me, their mind has become “super tangled”. (If I understand your analogy correctly) They are, to me, insane. Their mind is working against itself. They are scary.
As to the project, oblique verbiage with a visual image should get it past the left hemisphere into the right hemisphere, bypassing the reductionist overlay. There are plenty of self help books, all good stuff, no point in regurgitating them. Assuming a 52 card deck, that’s 26 pages, (both sides) with a 4 page intro. That’s 30 pages for a p-book ($3) or free for an e-book. A physical deck is $13, free for virtual deck.
Fortunately, the mind is a simple thing conceptually, and bottom up thinking works well here.
There is a plethora of data out there, a cornucopia of riches that could solve most of the problems of mankind and allow him to reach his full potential. It just needs to be collated.
