180 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
Once a long-term Perceiver connection has been discovered, the battle
is still not over. Now the challenge is for Perceiver strategy to gain
sufficient confidence to hold on to this connection in the midst of the glare
of the Mercy „bait.‟ For instance, as far as chocolates are concerned, one of
the most lasting Perceiver connections is probably the relationship between
chocolate and fat. Heavy feelings in stomachs pass, acne clears up, but fat
stays around—and I do mean around.
Suppose that Perceiver thought manages to believe in the connection
between „chocolate‟ and „fat‟ at all times except when I am holding a
morsel of melting love in my trembling hands. Conscience will have no
effect on either behavior or weight gain because, at the precise time when
it is needed, it is inactive. At the very instant that Perceiver strategy should
be asserting belief, at that split second it is mesmerized by the emotion of
the moment.
Unfortunately, the problem is worse than that. The level of Perceiver
confidence may be insufficient to change behavior, but it is strong enough
to induce feelings of guilt. Once the episode of sensory gratification has
passed, then the level of feeling lowers to the point at which Perceiver
strategy can begin again to operate. The emotional glare of the moment has
faded, the Perceiver observer snaps out of its trance, discovers that Mercy
strategy has identified with the forbidden fruit and then begins to insist
with great certainty that Mercy thought will also identify with the
conclusion of fat.
Therefore, I suggest that a partially functioning conscience is actually
worse than no conscience at all. Without an operating conscience, one can
at least enjoy the chocolate until the fat appears, but when conscience
works part of the time, then the mental misery starts almost immediately,
long before any physical discomfort arrives on the scene. Unfortunately,
Perceiver confidence can only be gained gradually, which means that
conscience is capable of making me miserable for a long time before it
succeeds in changing my behavior.
This leads us to the following paradox. Some time ago, I suggested that
mental „life‟ was constructed out of the building blocks of conscience.
Now I am suggesting that when conscience appears, it usually starts by
making me feel miserable. Does this mean that I must go through mental
misery in order to find „life‟? Yup! What type of answer did you expect
anyway? All I am saying is that the structure of our mind forces us to
finish our vegetables before eating dessert. Ah, you thought that this book
would show you a shortcut to mental maturity. I suggest that there are no
shortcuts—only detours.
What is Me?
We saw that the external world usually stops Mercy emotion from
completely overwhelming Perceiver thought and common sense. This is