Personality and the Closed or Open Mind
Today I understood something important…

A mature personality does not engender a closed mind.

How many people have stood where I have stood, wondering whether capturing ideals will make ugly rote of their precious will? How many times in the pursuit of absolute truth have seemingly wise people doubted themselves when faced with the possibility of knowing that truth? Who among us has said, “If I were freed from my ignorance, every decision would be no decision at all”?

All our lives we seek to become enlightened, and yet the Enlightened speak with certainty. Surely their words are not inherently wrong. Does this mean their minds are flawlessly closed instead? No! we cry. Not that! Surely there must be something above that, just as the hubris of fools is a horrible perversion of the confidence of sages. But what?

It would seem that closedness is the perversion of something better…and the only thing that could possibly be better than an open mind, is a mind without ignorance…an all-knowing intellect that would still be capable of openness if extra-universal truth were to emerge. A closed mind would thus be a perversion of pansophy, the subjective form of omniscience.

But the question of personality remains, in a more insidious form. No one is perfect, no one is all-knowing, and yet the Enlightened still speak with certainty. Are they wrong after all? Does not every speculative insight point to a mature personality as the thief of an unlocked, unbarred, open mind? For, rather than robbing the mind, a maturing personality would seem to rob the openness itself. How perfect a crime, to steal something without ever touching it…to destroy uncertainty by filling it up with convictions. Is personality wrong, and a mature personality a riper form of wrong?

I first had this problem in earnest with Silence Terlais, who is a much more extreme alter ego of myself…but I personally would have encountered the same trouble, in time. With Silence, I often came to the troubling conclusion that, as her illumination grows, so too shall all the “right” answers appear before her, thus narrowing her astounding will into a single road with no discernable forks left. As author of her universe, I could have simply dismissed this conundrum and declared her to be a perfect being. But as an admirer of that universe, I would never dare. It would be an act of self-desecration. Or, to put it another way, would Silence choose a wrong path just to prove she has the power to defeat herself?

Is it true that for each right choice there is an infinitude of wrong alternatives? Are wrong choices chosen only out of necessity or ignorance? Could God make a wrong choice? Now we have two problems: The imperfect mature personality, and the mythical “perfect” personality.

Closed-mindedness is a very comfortable prison. Open-mindedness is a prison too, but one where all the boundaries are farther away than we can ever hope to see. All the universe is ultimately a prison, and human nature, being what it is, is to wonder whether prison might not be the wrong word.

Does illumination reveal our deepest shame, being that sentient will is only a figure of speech in the language of universal realism? If personality is the taint of perspective upon the light of illumination, and one then extends the metaphor to imply that a mature personality casts a very distinct taint, then is it not the sad truth that pansophy, being howsoever less repugnant, is still just as harrowing an accomplishment as closed-mindedness?

Perhaps not. You might note that I still haven’t gotten to the thesis with which I began. The inverse of personality is impressionability. The absence of personality is a void. As we mature in personality, not only to we move away from the void, but we diminish in impressionability as well. (The uncommon converse of this gradual fact of life is when our convictions are shaken, typically by some traumatic event or moment of epiphany, at which our personality retreats very suddenly, and impressionability is left in its place.)

“He who is certain, is certainly wrong.” That’s a moral I made up just now, but which no doubt has been spoken many times before. The point is that, excepting anyone with a perfect personality, whose taint of perspective would be transparent to the light of illumination, we are all flawed, and thus prohibited from possessing certainty…and yet certainty is what personality is all about. For instance, I value honor. That is a certainty. I value open-mindedness, which is also a certainty even though the conviction itself is a special case where the object of the conviction is antithetical to the notion of certainty that sustains it. How can it not be that personality engenders a closed mind?

At this point, I must admit to playing a trick on you. This debate is your debate. It is the necessary conditioning for anyone who wishes to understand what I am about to say:

Personality is indeed a taint on the light of illumination. However, personality is also the only essence within us that is sensitive to that light in the first place. Without personality, there can be no illumination. It is our certainties that bind to the absolute truth, howsoever twisted these certainties are…even to the point that a dark personality blocks out most light and twists the rest beyond any semblance of reason, no matter how elegant the personality itself may be. Be that as it may, truth is the particle of illumination, for illumination consists of knowledge, awareness, and understanding—these three things each vital and distinct…the object of truth, the condition of truth, and the action of truth. Yes, illumination is more than truth while being entirely comprised of truth, just as the universe is more than atoms while being entirely comprised of atoms. We call that holism.

The point:

A mature personality may not be illuminated, but an illuminated personality is always mature.

So, it takes a personality to achieve illumination…and the riper the better. But doesn’t illumination, the freedom from ignorance, still narrow our decisions into no decision at all? As we speculated at the beginning, wouldn’t the development of opaque personalities lead to closed-mindedness, and the transparent ones to the mortal derivative of pansophy, which I will call sapience? In that sense, a mature, opaque personality would indeed lead to closed-mindedness…except for one wee problem: Semantics. How can an opaque personality possibly be mature?

Ah, yes. I have burst the bubble…for I have played a word game. I can feel your elation crash to the earth. Personalities can become very elaborate and very fat, but that does not make them…mature.

So here is what we have:

● The absence of personality is nothingness, while its inverse is impressionability.
● Personality is our bond with the light of illumination.
● A personality may grow to be very fleshy and intricate, but without the transparency of broadmindedness, it cannot be called mature.
● A personality opaque to the light of illumination, as it develops, approaches closed-mindnedness. Opaque is another word for “closed,” no coincidence.
● A personality very distinctly transparent to the light of illumination will approach sapience as it matures, which is the mortal form of pansophy, which is the subjective form of omniscience.

Ergo, a mature personality does not engender a closed mind.

…because a mature personality engenders the true form to which closedness is but a mockery…and because a personality that does lead to closedness is not mature. That's one part Joshalonian wisdom, and one part Joshalonian cunning. =)

So where does all of this leave Silence? Perfectly free to do exactly what she knows she wants.