I Solve Business Problems With Psychic Figures

Man suffers most from what he cannot distinguish from himself. What he calls his mood is often only a figure whose face he has not yet seen.

A mood feels like me, as fog feels like the valley itself to the man who has forgotten the mountains. I do not experience it as something new. I experience it as the truth of my condition.

When I do not wish to work, I say: I am unwilling.

When fear rises within me, I say: I am frightened.

Yet I have spoken too quickly.

For the unwillingness is not the whole of me. The fear is not the whole of me. The panic is not the truth of the thing.

They are powers within me that have borrowed my name. So long as they remain without form, they govern me as fate. But when I give them a face, when I behold their posture and hear their speech, they become figures.

This is possession — not the monstrous possession of old stories, but the ordinary possession of man by his own unseen states. A state takes my place, speaks with my oldest voice, and makes its decisions beneath my name.

A mood has me.

A figure I can see.

The moment I see the figure, I am no longer wholly contained within it. There are now two within the house: the figure, and the one who beholds the figure.

The one who beholds can still live. He can still work. He can still choose.

When something in the business breaks and panic rises, this too is a figure. It is a liar with a single art: it takes the fracture of one stone and declares the whole house fallen.

Something broke.

But panic says: Everything is broken.

Once seen, it returns to its proper size. One damaged thing. Findable. Repairable.

And the fear of selling is not simply: I am afraid.

It is a figure standing between me and the act. Its whole power depends upon remaining unseen. It wishes to become the climate of my world rather than a passing storm; my identity rather than a visitor; fate rather than fear.

But once I behold it, I can say:

You are the one who fears the answer.

You are the one who would preserve me from rejection by preserving me from action.

You may remain, but you will not decide.

Then I make the call.