170 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
I suggest that these three factors will give the growing teenager a
positive self-image. Rather than suffering from guilt, he will feel good
about himself and his surroundings. Like
the rebel, the growing teenager also
gains mental independence. But he
achieves this freedom through the
positive path of adult thinking, and not
by suppressing childish responses. Like
the rebellious teenager, his childish
memories will also continue to operate
autonomously as a „living‟ mental
network, but the feelings that they
produce will be good ones. This results
from the way that he has treated his
childhood memories. He respected and
accepted the feelings, learned from the
'facts,' and focused upon the positive. As
a result, he will view his childhood, not
as an enemy, but rather as a friend. This
attitude will affect his worldview. In
particular, he will see „the establishment‟ as something friendly and helpful.
Fourth, the growing independence of the teenager will cause him, in a
natural way, to question the 'facts' of his childhood. Like the rebellious
teenager, he also will end up belittling his youth. But, the mental
mechanism which prompts this change in attitude will be different. Rather
than attacking childish feelings in order to reduce them below the level of
his Perceiver confidence, he flexes the „muscles‟ of Perceiver confidence
in order to raise it above the level of Mercy emotion. Instead of saying
“You are wrong” to his parents, the growing teenager says, “I know what
is right, I can do it by myself.”
Fifth, this growing Perceiver confidence will bring the mind of the
teenager into the threshold of uncertainty. But, unlike the rebel, the
growing teenager will not be trapped in confusion. This is because the
extent of his mental uncertainty will always remain limited. On the one
hand, global confusion will be avoided. This is because continuing respect
for parents preserves the emotional foundation upon which childish
'beliefs' are based. On the other hand, any confusion which is produced
will have limited time and extent: Learning Perceiver facts will cause him
to doubt childish 'facts,' but only in the specific area of learning; placing
confidence in these new Perceiver facts will bring this aspect of thought
through the threshold of confusion and back into mental stability. In this
way, he can whittle away at childish delusions one at a time.