Global modality provides a much broader and subtler interpretation of freedom than local modality. Here, freedom, even in its everyday sense, sounds largely like an abstract, almost philosophical category; a person considers the entire spectrum of possible behavioral options and evaluates it in terms of its richness and breadth of opportunities, without being limited by their current intention or the immediate consequences of its fulfillment. Instead, they examine the issue as a whole and in a significantly broader context. What may disturb them is not local restrictions but the overall limitation of choice: “Let me be tied to a baby today and unable to leave the house—that doesn’t bother me; but tomorrow he will grow up—and where will I be able to go?” A typical unresolvable problem in the global understanding of freedom lies in its retrospective examination: “Yesterday, I made a mistake. Was I free in my choice? What was the real spectrum of possible behavioral options available to me? To what extent was I guided by my subconscious? Fate? The will of the egregore or a black magician?” This list of questions can be extended indefinitely, but a person is unlikely to find a satisfactory answer, since the concept of freedom itself is understood only within certain temporal modalities, and, in particular, its application to the past is limited and highly conditional.
Thus, freedom in local and global understanding are entirely different concepts, and people for whom it is important in the local modality often do not understand the claims of their partners who primarily understand freedom globally.
— You are restricting me.
— I always leave you the opportunity to fulfill your desires!
— But you are restricting me overall.
— What does that matter?
— That’s the only thing that matters!
This conversation, as the reader understands, is entirely non-complementary, and the partners have no chance of reaching an understanding until one of them changes modality—or, more precisely, until they realize that for their partner, a completely different modality of freedom is significant than for themselves.
Questions for the reader.
Do you feel free when alone?
Do you understand freedom as the absence of tangible restrictions?
Are concepts of freedom and inspiration linked for you?
Do you find it difficult to adhere to external routines, such as arriving at work on time?
Are you inclined to seek obstacles within yourself, in external circumstances, in specific enemies, or in an evil fate?
Do general social frameworks or more specific circumstances limit your freedom?
Do you believe that a people can influence their fate, or do you consider such a question absurd?
Self-Esteem and Conceit
There are insufferably arrogant people, and there are unimaginably humble ones. While the latter is easier for others to tolerate, in any case, it is important to understand the internal nature of a person’s self-esteem and the peculiarities of its external manifestation—specifically, to see or intuit the relevant modalities.
Local conceit is typically very fluid and, most importantly, directly tied to a person’s current mental state and their successes at a given moment. “I’m terrible! I’m good for nothing!”—such self-assessment, expressed in the heat of frustration over a minor failure, is quite adequate if clarified with the word “today”; however, the person themselves implies this and has no need for such clarification, especially since subconsciously they know that in half an hour, for no greater reason, they will exclaim, “I am truly great! I’ve done well!”—and so on.
Local self-esteem pertains to either a fragment of reality or a fragment of personality, and this must be clearly understood.
Statements like “I was good at that time” or “such-and-such traits of my personality don’t suit me at all” do not imply, for a person using the local modality, a subsequent generalization to their entire life or person—even if their words might seem to suggest otherwise. However, an experienced observer will not miss the activity of the local archetype: beneath it, words sound lighter and more concrete, and the intonation lacks the numerous pauses that symbolize ellipses or metaphorical generalization, which is characteristic of the global archetype.
The local archetype, in its manifestations, is emphatically one-sided—and when it manifests in self-esteem, it can be highly irritating if not understood correctly or if it is confused with the global.
Global self-esteem is something very serious, and if delivered with the appropriate pathos, it can literally crush the interlocutor. The phrase “I’m good for nothing!”—uttered under the global archetype—will make you believe for a moment that the person has failed in every aspect of their existence and is also seriously ill with an incurable disease, so much so that their days are numbered and no one will come to their modest grave with tears in their eyes—only crows will caw overhead.
Similarly devastating is global positive self-esteem: “I’ve lived a great, interesting, worthy life, succeeded as a family man and citizen, earned countless high awards, and am known at the regional level and in the noosphere.” Upon hearing such self-characterization, the interlocutor will want to slink away to a dog’s bowl.
However, global self-esteem is not necessarily elaborate: in spoken language, it is enough to begin it, and the rest will be conveyed by intonation (solemnly serious), a responsible, composed facial expression, posture (that of Caesar or a beggar on the porch), and gestures that engage the entire body.
Dealing with a person whose self-esteem is governed by the holistic archetype at the chaotic (first) stage of processing is extremely difficult. They confuse local and global modalities in the most unpleasant way for their partner: for example, they perceive private criticism directed at them (“You tied your shoelaces poorly”) as a globally humiliating assessment (“You’re good for nothing in anything”) and react accordingly—deeply offended, holding a grudge for a long time. Conversely, general remarks that are unpleasant and unfavorable to them in their direct meaning (“Frankly, your moral image is lame”) they cleverly interpret in the local modality and apologize as if nothing happened: “Sorry, yesterday I made an awkward joke,” while their partner accumulates resentment over the years.
The difficulty in correcting such behavior lies in the challenge of recognizing and articulating it in ordinary language, since local and global modalities are highly abstract and usually not registered by consciousness—or at least do not seem significant to the person—until they have mastered the material in this section.
Questions for the reader.
Do you consider questions about self-esteem harmful or meaningless?
What do you value most about yourself?
What do you condemn most harshly within yourself?
If you are dissatisfied with another person, how do you express your opinion about their person—locally or globally?
How often do you feel like an individual?
What does this concept mean to you?
Try to answer the last question in writing and determine the modality of your response.
Weaknesses and Fears
Every person has their own weaknesses—they dislike them, fear them, avoid them as much as possible, and at every opportunity suppress them into the subconscious. However, for self-work, weaknesses pose a significant challenge: sometimes they can be compensated for or circumvented, and sometimes not, forcing a person to confront them head-on. This is a very difficult and painful process, and the correct use of modalities can provide great assistance—such as eliminating pronounced imbalances in their use, i.e., the obvious and even non-complementary nature that screams in communication, including with oneself.
Therefore, careful attention to the modalities a person uses is especially important and instructive when it comes to their weaknesses, neurotic zones, and phobias.
In the local modality, a person’s weaknesses are always specific and defined; they may, of course, be connected to certain circumstances in their life (for example, stemming from a difficult childhood experience), but they are usually presented as such.In other words, the person seems to say: “Here I feel bad, here I am unsure of myself, so don’t touch this place or help me if you can, but please, for God’s sake, be more careful—it hurts.” However, the sore spot in the local modality is not isolated from the rest: a helping hand can be extended to it, so to speak, supplies such as iodine, a tourniquet, bandages, and necessary nourishment can be delivered. The global modality of examining a person’s weak points primarily involves isolating them from the surrounding space. Most often, the person surrounds the area around the sore spot with a high fence on which is written: “Do not approach!”—and this area is taken with a large margin, so that it also includes absolutely healthy parts, which, however, are given the status of being sick. “Once burned by milk, one blows on water,” says the proverb about such situations, and this is typical of the global approach to weaknesses at a low level of processing the global archetype. It should not, however, be thought that the global examination of weaknesses is devoid of advantages—in fact, only a global view allows one to connect this weak spot with the rest of the person’s psyche and to determine the causes of the weakness, its immediate and distant consequences, and effective ways to strengthen or compensate for it.
When it comes to fears, the local view is oriented by the question: “What am I afraid of?”, whereas the global view is oriented by the question: “What kind of situations am I afraid of?”—and in the first case, the person can usually say quite precisely what terrible thing might happen to them, while in the second case such concretization is deliberately absent. Let’s consider, for example, the fear of public speaking (or exams).
a specific picture of the situation he fears: at the beginning of his speech, his throat tightens, his voice disappears, all thoughts fly out of his head, the sheets with the report notes are snatched away by a gust of wind through the window, and the slides won’t fit into the slide projector. Seeing all this, the audience bursts into Homeric laughter and pelts the unsuccessful speaker with rotten tomatoes, pre-purchased at the nearest market. A global perspective will be limited to a general fear of the situation as such, without concretizing possible pitfalls or doing so in a way that nothing specific can be done in advance: “Something terrible will happen, I don’t know what. Well, maybe they’ll ask a question I can’t answer—and then it’s shame, shame, shame!” In this case, as a rule, the accentuation of archetypes on phobic situations is very persistent, meaning it is impossible to shift a person from a local perspective to a global one (or vice versa), or the person loses interest in such a turn of the topic, considering it meaningless or ineffective.
“Fear must be studied concretely!” believes the local archetype. “Detail by detail, nuance by nuance, until the hair on your head turns gray from the horror experienced!” — “No,” the global archetype objects, “fear is interesting and meaningful only in its entirety, in its uncertainty, surprise, and mystery!” This dispute rages on forever.
Questions for the reader. Which archetype are you on the side of? And your acquaintances and relatives? Which fears do you have more of: local or global? Which of them are more repulsive, and which bring more external and internal troubles? Which ones would you like to get rid of first? Does anything help you understand the replacement of the modality of consideration?
The subjective modality of time is a moment that a psychologist must pay significant attention to. Only for physics and astronomy is time subject to precise measurement and entirely objective (and even then, it depends on the coordinate system); for a person, there are many different types of time perception, and all the functioning of their psyche changes when transitioning from one to another.
A local modality of time perception is actualized, for example, when a person selects a specific moment in time and focuses their attention on it. What is the reader doing now? Sitting (the author hopes) on something soft; reading the first part of Avesalom Podvodny’s interesting book; hoping the second part will turn out no worse than the first… Another option for a local view of a certain time is fixing attention on a specific quality or individual qualities from a large list of possible ones: “That time was interesting, but hungry and dangerous.” A frequent sign of the local modality of time is the precise indication of a year, season, date, or other exact circumstances: “I remember the spring of 1990 in the Caucasus…” By emphasizing the local modality of time, a person uses words such as “happened,” “once,” “I remember when.”
The global modality of time necessarily encompasses a certain period possessing unified (for this person) qualities; the set of these qualities is most often not random and forms a complete system. “Period,” “time segment,” “interval”: “In his ‘Blue Period,’ the young Picasso created many of his famous paintings.”
Many words that specify the modality of time do so to an insufficient degree, which can create grounds for great misunderstandings, especially when people do not strive for precision in communication or accuracy in communication. All words, everything is understood correctly—if only it were that simple! The modality of time, as a rule, is far from accidental—there are many weighty (for it) reasons in the subconscious for using precisely this, and not another, modality.
You can answer the question “What are you doing now (then)?” in the local modality and subtly shift it into the global one—it is much safer to respond: “Then, last Saturday, I, as usual, was sucking my paw in my den” (in the latter answer, one can see the person’s effort to use the local archetype as required by the question, but with the essential phrase “as usual”).
Another interesting question is the correlation between the local and global modalities of time a person uses with the modalities of the past, present, and future. Do you have any observations in this regard? Are you free to combine local and global modalities of the present, past, and future? Do you have specific events that have influenced your entire life?
Every person has favorite fairy-tale or mythological plots, characters from books, and vivid images that accompany their life. From a psychological point of view, their choice is far from random—it reflects deep forms and accents of the subconscious, which largely determine the entire life plot of a person. Therefore, it is very instructive during a psychological analysis to examine the modalities a person uses when describing their favorite plots and images.
The global archetype manifests in a person’s love for complete plots, for morals, for a happy ending to a fairy tale that puts everything in its place, so to speak, distributes the earrings to the sisters who deserve them. The global view intuitively stops at a character who has a complete nature—whether embodied good or, sometimes, even evil. The charm of Rudyard Kipling’s tales about Mowgli is largely connected with the single image of the Jungle as a closed, self-contained world, governed by a Single Law, based on the principle of blood kinship and balanced coexistence of seemingly incompatible species.
People guided by the global archetype often prefer closed epics in childhood, within which they can embed their lives—such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” the mythologies of ancient Greeks and Indians. In this case, it is often not so important for a person which specific character from their favorite cycle of tales they identify with—the fact of their psychological integration into a closed and complete plot is more important for them.
The local archetype usually selects individual strokes, details of psychology or elements of the plot with which a person associates themselves—but not the whole, only a part of their psyche and future fate. “The Decameron” by Boccaccio, tales about Winnie the Pooh, Carlson, Cheburashka, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins attract with the vividness of individual episodes, not the completeness of the general picture, and as a rule, do not inspire a desire to build one’s life within the reality created by the authors. For a person guided by the local archetype, the traits of a specific character with whom they (partially) identify are very important, and these traits and the most memorable episodes from books accompany the person throughout their life—often in the form of particularly memorable quotes. For an Englishman or American, their inexhaustible source is Shakespeare; for an Indian, the Bhagavad Gita; for a Russian intellectual who matured under socialism, the books by Ilf and Petrov. “Thunder and lightning—enter three witches”; “I am the only I, the worldly I”; “Son of a Turkish subject”—such references, which have entered the body and blood of an individual without any continuation, betray their strong connection with the local archetype.
Questions for the reader. In which modality do you usually see your favorite images and plots? Do you remember the brightest details of them or primarily the plot framework of your favorite books (films, plays)? Do you like it when all plotlines are resolved by the end of the story? When a fairy tale ends with a clear moral? When you can recall it in detail and color? Which is easier for you to remember a story you liked—based on its plot or the vivid traits and actions of its characters? Do you consider yourself one of many equal participants in the Drama of Life, or do you feel that, as far as your perspective allows, life revolves around you and your ideas?
Talents and Creativity
The local view of talent does not raise the question of the place of talent in a person’s life—here, the relevant topics are the development of talent, its formation, and realization in this or that life and professional material: “When I grow up, I will sing to bring joy to people, everywhere and always: at parties, on the train, at rest stops.”
Meanwhile, people captivated by their craft, under the local archetype, are not inclined to sacrifice the rest of their life for the sake of realizing their talent—attention shifts too easily, and they organically cannot confine their gift to a narrow sphere of life. If the gift is wit, the local archetype will not allow it to be limited to writing humorous sketches—this person will laugh in any company, finding unexpected twists in conversation literally at every turn. (The global archetype, by contrast, may produce a professional wit, a comedy writer, exceptionally taciturn and gloomy in private and public life.) Similarly, creativity in the local modality is understood as an unconventional, unexpected solution, a choice of an unusual path, simply an original finding in any specific situation and with any material. Something that did not exist or had not occurred to anyone else, but for some reason occurred to me—that is the entire creative act in its local sense. In this regard, the well-known slogan, “There is always room for creativity in life,” is unequivocally of local modality, whereas from a global perspective it makes no sense or, at the very least, is too frivolous.
The global view of talent in its narrow variant isolates it from human psyche and fate and considers it almost separately from them—a perspective as widespread as it is antihuman. Professional self-realization is, of course, an important part of a person’s life, but by divorcing it from other spheres of life, we reduce the microcosm to a component of the social mechanism, thereby degrading the former and profaning the latter. Moreover, there are not only obviously socially necessary talents (such as the talent of a farmer, bricklayer, mining engineer, or administrator); there are also talents of a poet, artist, philosopher, which have very limited social applicability, as well as talents of a purely personal nature, for example, the gifts of kindness, hospitality, generosity, mercy, openness to other cultures—gifts that, in and of themselves, cannot find adequate realization in the form of a social profession (though they can certainly assist in it). Attempts to apply a narrow global approach to such talents usually prove futile—here a local or a broader global approach is much more appropriate.
The substantially more humane broad global view of talent considers it within the context of a person’s life. In other words, if the realization of a person’s talent under the global archetype in its narrow sense (talent as such) often implies ignoring the rest of their life, then under the influence of the global archetype applied to their life as a whole, the person consciously seeks to combine their talent with other life programs—for example, to serve other life goals in this way.
The global view most often compels a person to reflect on the totality of their talents, the degree of their realization, lost great opportunities, and global prospects for the development of their gifts. At the same time, it seeks ways to combine and jointly develop them—whether competitively or symbiotically. It is difficult to combine family and professional realization, deep elaboration and popularization, building a house and distant travels, but the refined global view helps a person find their own combination of talents and the main paths for their realization.
Creativity in the global sense is in no way leaps or jokes.A clown on the circus arena is something far more serious and grand. From a global perspective, there are areas that are generally creative, and there are template-routine ones where true creativity is absent and cannot exist; the same global view applies to human collectives, from the family to entire ethnic groups. Despite the awkwardness and even absurdity of such views from a local standpoint (“How can one deny an entire nation its creative essence!”), they persist steadily in human consciousness (and subconsciousness), remaining consistent in their approach.
Reader’s question. How do you understand folk creativity? Can you provide a list of your talents? Realized (even partially) talents? Talents you would love to realize? Do you know anyone whose creative essence manifests daily? Have you heard of such people? Do you believe their stories? Do you think one can creatively sweep the floor? Arrive at work creatively? Live life creatively?
Initiative and Will
Will is an integral part of human life. Yet in some people it is abundant, with unclear sources of origin, while in others it is scarce, and in yet others it appears spontaneously and vanishes for inexplicable reasons. Unraveling the mystery of this process can be aided by attentive observation of the modalities of human volition and initiative. Furthermore, when perceiving and evaluating another’s will, it is crucial to recognize in which modality it is expressed. Likewise, a person expressing their will in one modality risks being utterly misunderstood if their interlocutor or partner perceives it in another.
Let us examine these situations through the lens of the holistic archetype’s modalities.
Local initiative is distinguished first and foremost by the fact that it does not anticipate anything beyond what the person directly expresses. In other words, it does not foresee complications, side effects, or consider where the initiative might lead or what actions it might necessitate; it simply offers—and that’s it. It is entirely possible that the person expects their partner or partners, upon receiving the proposal, to develop it, expand it, refine details, and consider aspects the initiator did not deem worth pondering, thereby shifting the modality to global and transforming the private into the collective.
On the other hand, the person may have no such intention at all, assuming instead that their interlocutor will reject the initiative or propose their own, sparking a discussion that eventually leads to a meaningful conclusion—but the person does not view their proposal as a finished, formalized, and complete act.
Spontaneity, surprise, topic-switching, shifts in perspective, and an apparent disregard for consequences are characteristic of local initiative, though not obligatory.
Global initiative appears far more serious than local. Here, the person envisions a closed, completed situation they intend to influence, assuming responsibility for the nature of their impact, its consequences, and the final outcome—at least in their mind. This does not mean global initiative must be lengthy or comprehensive; the person may outline it in a few general words, yet intend it to unfold according to a thought-out plan. Of course, a frivolous person may also pursue global initiative or display global will without elaborating it in detail, but at least it will pertain to the object as a whole and imply its global transformation.
Equally important is how a person perceives another’s will or initiative. Local will directed at them may be received intensely—perhaps even negatively—and if it displeases them, they may categorically reject it. Yet their rejection or indignation will also remain local, unlikely to lead to far-reaching conclusions.
A completely different reaction arises when a person perceives another’s will directed at them in a global modality. Immediately, unpleasant thoughts arise about possible enslavement, total control by the other person, the need to distance themselves significantly, and other unpleasant notions.
There are, of course, people who, conversely, do not seek independence but actively seek an authoritative figure. Such a person will perceive instructions given in a local modality globally, which can lead to profound misunderstandings that are difficult to unravel.
In interpersonal relations, distinguishing between informational exchange and volitional influence is extraordinarily important. My partner says something to me—are they saying it casually, amusing me or conveying important information, with no ulterior motive, or are they directly or indirectly imposing their will on me? This question is acute, and errors in such assessments come at a high cost to both parties.
Sometimes, a local statement conceals local will that precisely matches the content of the message. Sometimes, a global statement conceals global will that precisely matches the content of the message. Yet such situations are exceedingly rare. Typically, what we say does not align with what we expect from our partners—not only because we struggle to articulate our thoughts and intentions but also because our subconscious intervenes, often harboring entirely different aims. One of the most effective tools of the subconscious is shifting modalities.
“I want you to always listen to me,” a young man declares to his wife. Is this local or global will? Judging by how it is expressed—undeniably global. Yet his wife will likely interpret it locally, perceiving it as a wish for her to heed him in specific situations—say, fulfilling the requests he made yesterday. He, in turn, probably intends not a global demand for her to submit to his will but a purely local one: that tonight, when he wants to stay home and watch TV, she not drag him to a friend’s party.
Reader’s question. In what modality do you perceive the promises of political leaders during election campaigns? How often do you feel like a puppet of fate? What unsettles you more: private requests from loved ones or their joint wishes regarding your behavior? Are you inclined to consider the consequences of your initiatives? Do you ponder the side effects of your actions when planning them? Does the phrase “the will of the people” hold any meaning for you?
Development
The theme of development, or evolution, is one of the most vital in human life. Whether consciously or not, everyone holds certain views on this subject and certain subconscious accents that surface and manifest in their actions the moment the topic of development arises—whether concerning personal growth, social progress, or the evolution of an external object or the world at large.
Symbolically, a developing object can be likened to a bush: its roots, extending underground, represent the relatively stable foundation or platform of the evolving entity, while its branches and leaves symbolize the dynamic, mutable part that signifies the direction of development.
Interestingly, when addressing either the roots or the leaves, a person may employ entirely different modalities, and observing these reveals much that is instructive.
A global attitude toward the roots—or the base of the developing object—often manifests as general approval or disapproval: the person likes or dislikes them. They may believe the roots are reliable or unreliable, that they are rotten and need clearing out or that the entire object should be transplanted to fresh soil, discarding the old roots.Paradoxically, such a global view of roots is often combined with a local attitude toward branches, meaning that the same person can examine possible development directions of an object very selectively, in detail, and thoroughly, differentiating them, comparing one with another, and carefully selecting those they like and those that do not suit them at all. For example, when thinking about their child’s future, a parent may long and diligently ponder possible options for their future fate, profession, learning methods, socialization variants, yet at the same time find it difficult to take into account the child’s core character traits and inclinations that are already evident and clearly unchanging. They can assess this already-formed mental foundation of the child only in general but have no interest in examining it in detail.
A local view of roots, on the other hand, implies a person’s tendency to meticulously and thoroughly analyze their nomenclature, features, combinations, placing great importance on the most vivid, expressive, and striking ones. Such a person enjoys delving into the object’s history, seeing in it new and new details that interest them and never tiring of them. Meanwhile, their view of the object’s further development prospects may be quite global, meaning they can evaluate them in general but understand the specifics.Calculating options will not appeal to him at all. A father of this type will happily reflect on the character traits of his child that appeared early, recalling characteristic episodes from his childhood, relationships with relatives, friendships with peers, believing that all this is precisely the foundation that will support him throughout his life. However, this father will likely view the future, on the contrary, in a general, schematic way, without elaborating on possible developmental scenarios for his child, his fate, considering this meaningless and uninteresting, or perhaps even harmful to him.
Reader’s question. In which modality do you perceive your childhood: in the local or global? What interests you more about it: specific episodes or the overall character structure that formed during your childhood and youth? Do you believe that certain fragments of the future can be predicted accurately? Do you believe that a person’s character as a whole determines their fate? Have you ever been interested in your family tree? When starting a new job, do you inquire in detail about the company’s history? Are you concerned in this situation about its specific prospects, or are you more interested in the general directions of its development? Do you consider facts or their generalizations to be the most valuable in history?
Energy
Energy is the main currency of modernity. It would probably be better if it were wisdom, but humanity has not yet reached that level. However, people perceive and transmit energy in completely different ways.
A local view of energy highlights certain aspects of it and its ability to influence a particular object, causing specific changes in it. The force of a twenty-ton impact—such a characteristic from a local perspective means nothing. Who delivered the blow? From what object? What happened to that object? Did it shatter or remain intact? These are the typical details that concern the local perspective.
A global view, on the contrary, is interested in the general characteristics of the energy flow or energy influence, while details either do not concern it or seem insignificant. Typical global responses: “An energetic person. He succeeded, and that’s all there is to it.” The resources of his energy seemed inexhaustible. High-ranking officials need charisma; otherwise, they quickly turn into dictators.
Local expressions, however, sound like this: “I hit the ball so hard that it flew off the court and rolled straight onto the pavement.” “Just by looking at that woman, I feel unusual strength surge within me. But first and foremost, I want to run away.”
Reader’s question. Does the phrase “an eight-point hurricane” mean anything to you? Does it become clearer to you when you see the trees it uprooted? Is the expression “psychic energy” meaningful to you? Does it ever happen that you feel the pressure of a situation in your physical body? What do you think drives people more: abstract ideas or concrete goals?
Anchors
An anchor is a term from modern psychology that refers to a place where a person’s mental ship has docked and which it tends to return to. In other words, an anchoring experience is one to which a person, throughout their life, somehow repeatedly returns, bringing their psyche into a certain state—sometimes negative, sometimes positive.
For example, some of our memories surface in our minds more often than others, associating with various circumstances in our current life but each time bringing us into a very specific mental and, in particular, emotional state. Anchors are usually strongly emotionally charged—either positively or negatively.
If a person has strong and persistent negative anchors, they are usually called neurotic—that is, someone whose life is marked by an obsessive urge to repeatedly return, without any particular reason, to stable difficult emotional states from which it is then very difficult to escape. On the contrary, people with strong positive anchors are said to have a good character, inexhaustible sources of good mood, kindness, love for people, and joy in life.
The question of which modality the anchors inherent in a person belong to is important both for them and for those who wish to enter into informal psychological relationships with them.
A local anchor is an event or memory of a completely specific nature. It is obvious that at the moment when this event occurs, deeply etching itself into a person’s emotional memory and to which they return again and again, even against their will, the person is in a particularly sensitive state of consciousness.
The question of why certain events become anchors is one of the deepest mysteries of personality psychology. It is clear that strong traumatic events often become anchors, but in many people, seemingly insignificant events tied to intense emotional experiences also play this role.
A global anchor, on the other hand, usually connects a person’s imagination not to a specific event or situation but to a certain period of their life or a large group of events that their imagination unites into a single whole. This period or group of events may be symbolized by a certain abstract symbol that acts as the anchor, rather than a specific event or experience.
For example, for a person who had a happy childhood or perceived their childhood as happy in itself, the word “childhood” or the phrase “happy childhood” will be a powerful anchor that brings them into a certain and generally positive constructive state of consciousness. Another example is a successful romance that lasted for several years but consisted of scattered meetings that together formed a single happy experience, which for this person becomes, for instance, a symbol of happy, harmonious relationships with another person and thus serves as a positive anchor.
Reader’s question. When you turn to the brightest episodes or moments of your past, do you see them as instantaneous snapshots, as entire periods of life, or as completed narratives? Do you remember the circumstances of your first meetings with people who later played an important role in your life? When you think about your childhood, do you recall specific episodes or your general emotional state? When evaluating past relationships that have ended, do you pay more attention to the moments of meeting or to the end of the relationship? When parting with someone, do you always try to understand the meaning of your relationship for yourself? For them? Does happiness come into your life as a moment or as periods, even if brief? When you reflect on your troubles and failures, do you relive them as they are, or do you try to find their causes as well?
Stuck
Stuck is a topic close to anchors but still different from them. Every person has themes, moments, or situations to which they mentally cling, as well as life narratives that they dwell on longer than they would like or than makes sense. Stuck is obviously a sign of a certain crack in the mental body or an imperfection in the mental mechanism, and for a psychologist, it is extremely important to understand the nature and causes of this kind of stuckness. In this, modality plays a great role: often, we get stuck not because of specific reasons but due to certain accompanying qualitative circumstances that accompany those reasons.
Local stuckness is the forced fixation of human thought or behavior on a particular moment, where it stops and for some reason cannot move forward. There are, for example, people who are completely unable to end a conversation or leave a gathering. When faced with a situation where the delicate fabric of communication must be decisively torn, they prove unable to do so and behave in such a way that they do not even allow their partner to do it, especially if the partner shows the slightest politeness. There are people who are magically drawn to a particular topic of conversation, and once they shift to it, no force can make them voluntarily let it go. Their partner has to interrupt them quite rudely or otherwise distract their attention to pull them out of this fixation. And yet, this topic is likely significant for their subconscious, even if it does not seem important to their conscious mind.There are couples who have found mutual understanding and agreement on all issues except one, but in that one issue each stands firm in their position, which excludes their partner’s stance, and for some reason they cannot move from this deadlock despite all efforts. Global stagnation is getting stuck on a specific topic or, for example, on a particular task that a person must complete but cannot even begin— or, having started, experiences such intense negative emotions that they immediately stop, or their efforts prove completely ineffective. If they begin to tackle such an insurmountable pile, it absorbs them entirely, leaving them unable to complete the task or shift to another storyline.
Such relationships bind many people, for instance, to the theme of the physical body and physical health. Few are fully satisfied with their physical form, considering it perfectly beautiful or at least sufficiently perfect for themselves. However, there are people for whom this theme holds no significant importance. Yet an equal number of people are perpetually dissatisfied with their bodies, having passed the threshold of youth, not in terms of beauty but in terms of health— for example, excess weight. Getting stuck on the issue of obesity or, more broadly, improper nutrition and lifestyle is characteristic of a significant percentage of the population in Western countries. Yet many cannot resolve this issue at all and remain trapped in it for years, often until death.
This does not apply to sick people, for whom getting stuck on illness may seem natural, though not necessarily inevitable, but rather to healthy individuals who are utterly unable to implement their health improvement program and hopelessly entangle themselves in it.
Question for the reader.
Reflect on your acquaintances. How do you get stuck in relationships with them? Do you get stuck on pleasant or unpleasant events, or certain closed relationship plots? What is harder for you: getting stuck on a specific thought or situation, or getting trapped in a storyline, spinning like a squirrel in a wheel? Do you enjoy rituals? Is it difficult for you to overcome rituals you find tedious, and how do you do it: instantly or through prolonged, unhurried efforts, as if unraveling a complex knot? Do you like the idea of cutting the Gordian knot?
Activity
The influence of archetypes is extremely important in understanding human activity. In reality, to work effectively on something, achieve success in one’s endeavors, and derive deep emotional satisfaction from them, each person requires specific conditions and their own arrangement of modalities. The same job, performed with a correct, organic combination of modalities for a person, can bring joy and fulfillment, while an unfortunate, unnatural combination of modalities can make it feel like a terrible psychological burden— and the cause of this burden may be completely incomprehensible to them.
On the other hand, life demands that a person master all existing modalities, so persistence in one at the expense of others cannot be considered exemplary behavior.
Let’s examine this topic more concretely using the example of an activity like cleaning an apartment.
The local approach is sometimes called the method of small tasks. It involves a person entering, say, the kitchen and starting to tidy up, clean, and wash dishes without using any special system, instead addressing whatever catches their eye at the moment. For example, they see a dirty cup on the table, pick it up, wash it, and put it away. Then their gaze falls on the dirty floor, so they grab a broom and sweep; afterward, their attention is drawn to crumbs on the tablecloth, and they deal with those, and so on.
The global approach looks entirely different. The person divides the entire task into clearly defined aspects that together encompass it completely. For example, cleaning an apartment involves a) ensuring cleanliness and b) establishing order. Within each aspect, they set precise spheres of activity that collectively cover the given aspect— for instance, order must be restored in the kitchen, rooms, and hallway. When washing dishes, they first wash all the spoons, then all the forks, then all the cups, then all the small plates, then all the deep plates, and finally arrange them in the cupboard in the same sequence.
Do not assume that one method is inherently better or worse than the other; in any given situation, one may be perfectly suitable while the other is completely inappropriate. For example, a warrior in battle cannot afford to focus on opponents according to a predetermined system— say, first examining their weapons, then their bodies, then their facial expressions, and so on. At every moment, they must give maximum attention to the opponent currently attacking them, while keeping an eye on the others.
On the other hand, organizing financial matters in an organization using the method of small tasks seems like a completely futile and doomed endeavor. An experienced chief accountant would never proceed this way.
Question for the reader.
Does the activity you engage in always have a clear goal that unites it? Do you trust your intuition about what you should be doing at this moment, or do you believe this question must be resolved by considering your situation as a whole? Do you think people with flexible schedules and freelancers are fundamentally lazy? Are you capable of adhering to at least some schedule? Do you enjoy when others or life itself calls you to order? Do you maintain that order? Is it necessary for your work? Does chaos exhaust you?
In the Social Environment
Now we will examine the important topic of how the modalities of the holistic archetype manifest in a person’s direct behavior within the social environment, where analyzing modalities is crucial, first, for a person to understand themselves and their problems and expand their range of possibilities, and second, to achieve harmony. The author must note that they do not equate the latter two concepts; moreover, in some cases, appropriate behavior may be non-complementary, but this non-complementarity should be recognized and used as a sharp tool to be applied precisely at the right time and in the right place.
The Boss
The local archetype compels the boss to delve into the minutiae and details of their team’s work. In principle, this is not bad, but they risk meddling in matters by bypassing their employees— that is, interfering in activities they have delegated to a subordinate and for which they have already placed responsibility on that person’s shoulders. Additionally, the local archetype tempts the boss to address issues by patching the most glaring holes. They tend to throw all their team’s energy into the most urgent problem, forgetting about the rest of their responsibilities. While they may be sincere in their efforts and even effective in resolving the immediate issue, the question remains: to what extent can this be sustained?
Another temptation for a boss operating under the local archetype is inconsistency. They may briefly elevate a subordinate, show favor, reward them, assign a responsible task, and then quickly lose interest, forget about them, and withdraw their attention— which undoubtedly harms the subordinate’s work. In many cases, this person appears to be moody, at least from the outside, and working with them can be very difficult— though, on the other hand, they may possess extraordinary creative potential, and what they focus on and direct their energy toward in the moment can develop in fascinating ways, even if no one knows how it will end.
The global archetype means entirely different behavior for the boss.In the first place, he will be concerned with the global balance within the team. Integral, holistic characteristics of the team will be significant for him; he will strive to ensure that each employee and each department occupies a specific place that aligns with his developed perceptions. He will tend to organize various hierarchies, classify types of employee work, and place great importance on summarizing and various concluding meetings, conferences, and the like. In interactions with subordinates, he seeks perfect clarity: he gives an assignment, and the subordinate brings a report after a predetermined time. What and how the subordinate does during this period does not so much worry him as he is not inclined to delve into it. In general, he prefers subordinates who are not so much proactive as responsible and predictable—those he can rely on in areas that interest him.
The boss guided by the local archetype, on the other hand, is drawn to subordinates who are bright, proactive, and sometimes even unruly, whose work is unexpected and unpredictable for him.
Questions for the reader. Do you like to look over someone’s shoulder while they are writing? Would you give instructions and advice to a hostess cooking food in the kitchen? Do you believe that careful monitoring of employees in their work is the foundation of success for any enterprise? Do you think that the structure of a company is decisive for its efficiency? How do you feel about the idea of a flexible schedule for your subordinates? Do you consider people working from home to be lazy? Do you like military parades and smart military uniforms? Folk celebrations during holidays?
A subordinate guided by the local archetype may become overly dependent on the attention of their boss. If they feel this attention, they believe they receive sufficient energy and clear guidance from the boss. Such a person can work with unusual productivity, enthusiasm, and strong creativity; however, it is crucial for them to feel that their work is not just a focus but at least a significant component of the team’s efforts. The moment of self-affirmation within the team is very important for them, and they experience situations where collective attention is directed elsewhere as extremely painful. They feel that they are not needed, and whether they do something or not changes little. Naturally, this undermines their productivity.
As for the work itself, such a person tends to chaotic wandering; they often struggle to organize a work front and a sequence for its execution. It is better if their boss does this for them or if they have a strict schedule regulating their activities. They may break this schedule and even secretly resent it, but without it, the chances of completing work on time and without significant gaps remain very slim. In any case, a person guided by the local archetype needs constant, albeit unobtrusive, control and some form of reporting that will mobilize them and push them to address the parts of their work that are currently lagging behind.
For such a person, delays are typical. They usually fail to complete their task on time and, for one reason or another, postpone its execution. Among their positive traits is the ability to concentrate on a difficult area of work and, for a while, quickly and effectively overcome the difficulties that arise there—but what to do next, they usually do not know. They will greatly appreciate periodic attentive attention from their boss, provided it is benevolent and effective, perhaps even more than might be appropriate. In general, they tend to turn to their superiors with significant or insignificant questions and later shift their responsibility onto them. They do not like responsibility as such; their favorite motto is, “I’m just a small person.”
The global archetype, on the other hand, gives the subordinate a strong desire to take their work and “run away” from their boss’s sight to handle it independently. They like to be given timeframes, as if an assignment is outlined and then they are left to themselves. They take responsibility for their work, plan it carefully, structure it like a coherent hierarchy, and execute it in that style. When prioritizing different parts of their task, they are not inclined to absolutize the most important parts and ignore the less important ones—all these parts are somewhat important to them, and they carefully maintain their balance. In general, balance is one of their favorite concepts. They do not like their boss interfering in their work, except at pre-agreed moments, and believe that, in principle, once an assignment is given, the boss can no longer help them—they must do everything themselves. If they clearly cannot meet their obligations, they will ask for help in general but not for specific interference in the details of their work.
When summarizing or reporting, they will highlight what they consider the main points, and no insignificant details or nuances will appear in their report. This is how they differ from a subordinate guided by the local archetype, who may literally inundate their boss with insignificant details and nuances presented as the results of their work.
Questions for the reader. Which bosses do you prefer—predictable or unpredictable? Do you like to subordinate your work to a schedule? Do you plan it a week or a month ahead? How easily do you make changes to your work plan? How often do you cancel business meetings? Is it difficult for you? Where do you prefer to talk with your boss—at your workplace or in their office? What would you prefer: for your monthly bonus to depend on your daily efforts or for your average salary level to be stable? Are you inclined to give specific work advice to your colleagues?
Among equals
A significant part of life involves communication within a group of equals—in a team, a company of friends, at a party, or in a situation where they are relaxing and have no significant obligations to higher-ups. It turns out that to feel truly comfortable, each person needs a certain distribution of modalities, and when the situation is structured differently, they feel uncomfortable or even very uncomfortable. To some extent, this can be managed by mastering modalities that a person subconsciously considers impossible and unacceptable. However, to some degree, our innate preferences prove stronger.
So, let’s consider modalities in communication among equals.
A person guided by the local archetype singles out one or two individuals in a group who attract general attention, and from their perspective, this is perfectly normal. They may be the center of attention themselves, in which case they feel the need to do something for the group, to entertain or engage them in another way. They may not be the center of attention, but then someone else will fully capture their focus, and this will also feel natural to them. True, after ten minutes, it may already be a different person or a different scenario. It is difficult for a person guided by the local archetype to hold attention for long.
In a group, they are not inclined to isolate themselves, either alone or in a pair, or to organize a closed circle. It is quite natural for them that whatever they are doing and whomever they are talking to, at any moment someone can approach them, interrupt their conversation with their current partner, interfere, distract them, and so on. They themselves allow such behavior, which may sometimes seem intrusive; however, they will not insist on anything, and if it is made clear that their interference is undesirable at the moment, they will likely step aside.
For them, it is natural that the group is not a stable structure, and if it is, they do not think about it. For them, wandering, constant shifts in focus, and a kaleidoscope of events happening all the time in different places that attract and then release their attention do not tire them in the least.If we talk about self-expression, then at certain moments he feels that he needs to be the center of attention, and it is important for him that he is listened to and valued right now; at other times, this theme does not bother him, nor does the theme of unity within the group. The global archetype provides a completely different vision and self-perception of a person within a group of equals. First and foremost, for him, it is not just a group but a collective. Moreover, a collective with a certain structure, hierarchy, and members of varying importance, and it is extremely significant for the person to which category he himself belongs. He values the ideas that brought this collective together, the meaning of the actions or events conducted within it, and what unites its members. He enjoys discussing the history of this collective, not in detail, but as if connecting its entire history from the moment of its creation to the present, and possibly even encompassing future prospects. He likes to speak on behalf of the collective as a whole, assessing its current state—”we’re doing well.”
If a new person appears in the collective, the individual guided by the global archetype will be concerned with how this new person can be optimally integrated into the collective. Perhaps he will take them under his wing, introduce them appropriately, ask certain questions, and generally arrange the situation so that the person quickly finds their place and feels comfortable and at ease there. The global archetype allows a person to sense the overall atmosphere in the collective and subtly manipulate it in any desired direction.
The drawbacks of this position include a certain authoritarianism and the tendency to identify oneself with the collective; however, friends may easily forgive this, seeing it as a sign of loyalty.
Question for the reader. Do you enjoy the ritualized moments of collective life? Do you like people who set the tone in a group, and would you like to be in their place more often? What bonds friends more—the past or the present? When a romance begins, do you strive to quickly introduce your beloved into your circle of friends, or do you wait until the relationship is more or less serious before doing so? Are you afraid that your friend (or friend’s partner) might “steal” your beloved? Has this ever happened in real life?
Family
For most people, family is the highest value. However, a person’s behavior within the family is often governed by invisible and intangible laws—both of the internal family life and of their own psyche. Observing these modalities can shed light on the mysterious and hidden causes that make it impossible to resolve long-standing family and personal issues.
The global archetype encourages a person to view and perceive the family as a whole, selecting and defining their place within it, even at the cost of conflict with other family members. At the same time, it is very difficult for the person to accept that, at times—even briefly—their role may change. Such disruptions of the overall arrangement bring feelings of anxiety, unease, and emotional pain, and they eagerly await the restoration of what they consider the normal state of affairs.
For the global modality, a person’s perception of their family is characterized by statements and life positions such as: “My home is my castle,” “I am the master of the house,” “The man earns the money—I spend it,” and “Everyone should know their place.”
A child under the influence of the global archetype instinctively defines the boundaries of their place in the family—both geographically, within the confines of their room, and psychologically, striving to dominate and assert their will in situations they consider their own while ignoring all others. As they grow, the number of family situations that must be perceived personally increases. If, clinging to their infantile irresponsibility, the child continues to limit their sphere of attention within the family to the same boundaries that were familiar to them at five years old, they are perceived as an extreme egocentric, and overcoming this kind of behavior should have been addressed much earlier.
The local archetype offers a completely different perspective on family and family relationships. A child growing up under the predominant influence of the local archetype is often lively, restless, and does not pay attention to the established family frameworks, easily breaking them—for example, casually bursting into their father’s study while he is working, something neither the wife nor other children would dare to do.Thus, despite ignoring many frameworks, he does not violate them overall, and they seem transparent to him. Under the local archetype, a wife is unlikely to keep systematic records of her expenses or plan purchases in advance, including large ones. If she has several children, she will give maximum attention to the one who, in her opinion, needs it at the moment, often forgetting about the needs of the others. The children will quickly learn that to attract her attention, they need to tug at her dress or cry loudly—only then can they expect her focus. An even more radical method is to say that you are hungry, sick, or unhappy. However, as soon as the distress subsides, the stomach is full, and the tears are wiped away, the mother’s interest in the child sharply fades, and she hurries to attend to the next pressing matter.
All of this may create some disorder, but it can also signify an exceptionally easygoing nature—when a person, even in the most difficult circumstances, does not linger on the overall tragedy of what is happening but always finds a bright moment and a smile that lingers on their lips. It is important to understand that the local archetype does not exclude the concept of family responsibility; it simply understands responsibility locally, meaning the person directs their full attention to the area they perceive as currently urgent and in need of their focus. However, one should not expect them to be able to survey the situation as a whole and take adequate action, for example, toward its long-term stabilization.
Self-affirmation under the local archetype is also relevant for the person, but it manifests quite differently than under the global one. Here, it occurs in the moment—when the person feels they are doing something exceptionally important for the family at that time, and they are rewarded with attention, applause, and the joyful cries of the children, as, for example, when a birthday cake appears on the table. Such moments, if properly emphasized within the family, are far more significant for the self-affirmation and self-realization of a family member living under the local archetype than the abstract formulation and awareness of their role in the family. The latter only makes sense and has meaning under the global archetype.
Questions for the reader.
How clearly are roles and responsibilities divided in your family? Do you feel the place your family assigns to you personally? Do you ever reflect on the fact that each member of your family has their own territory, both physically and psychologically? Do you believe parents should strictly regulate the responsibilities of all children in the family? How much of your family activities do you plan yourself? How much is planned by other family members? Are family rituals important to you?
Pair
Behavior in isolation with another person, or behavior in a pair, is one of the most important aspects of socialization. Here, a person’s personality enters into the closest interaction between the Cosmos and the personality of another, and the finest and most refined social skills are honed and realized. The role of correctly chosen and correctly perceived modalities in interpersonal relationships within an isolated pair cannot be overstated. Even the very concept of dialogue is likely tied to the ability of one person to hear and accept the perspective of another. The concept of “perspective” also undoubtedly includes invisible, often inaudible, and unconscious but clearly felt modalities.
When modalities change, the situation in the pair qualitatively shifts: sometimes the pair dissolves, sometimes, on the contrary, the pair experiences extraordinary unity, often because of the alignment not of content—that is, the perspectives of the interlocutors—but of their ways of seeing the situation in some abstract sense. In other words, the alignment of abstract modalities, the correlation of abstract modalities.
As an example, let us consider the difference in using the local and global archetypes in pair communication.
The local view of a pair most often means that a person adheres to the perspective that, at any given moment, there is only one person in the pair—either themselves or their partner—and thus the attention of both is focused on one of them. In other words, a person under the local archetype silently assumes that, at any moment, the attention of both members of the pair is concentrated, for example, on whoever is speaking. The speaker must think they are speaking, while the listener must listen carefully and absorb what is being said as fully and uncritically as possible. Then a role reversal may occur: the speaker begins to listen, while the listener expresses their own thoughts about what is happening, completely forgetting about their partner and focusing solely on themselves and their own ideas.
From the local perspective, it is difficult to think of the pair as a whole, at least in a situation where it is isolated from the surrounding social environment. For example, when two people are alone together and talking about something, the local view recognizes either one partner or the other. Alignment from a local perspective is primarily perceived as identity of positions and views, and the concept of complementarity is often seen as synonymous with synchronicity—that is, identity of modalities.
In general, the local view struggles to imagine adequate communication between fundamentally different people or sees it as a masterful transformation. Thus, if my partner differs greatly from me, then in communicating with them, I must either put on a persona very similar to theirs or they must put on a persona very similar to mine—and only then can adequate communication occur between us.
The global view, first and foremost, never forgets the existence of both partners. For example, if I am expressing my opinion to my partner under the global view, I will always glance at them and observe their reaction, and I will receive quick and precise feedback—such as noticing that my partner is not paying attention to me. Under the local view, such a circumstance often escapes the notice of the active member of the pair.
The global view is characterized by the pronoun “we”: “We agreed,” “Let’s try to distribute the roles between us.” The latter phrasing is typical of the global archetype. The global view does not always understand complementarity as identity; on the contrary, it tends to distribute roles, for example, assigning one of two opposites to one partner and the other to the second. For instance, situations where one partner is in a yang position and the other in a yin position, one represents the global view while the other represents the local view—the global archetype skillfully combines such accentuations, integrating the partners into a single whole.
Admittedly, once roles are distributed in a certain way, the global archetype finds it difficult to allow the partners to change them spontaneously. For example, if in a pair one partner is always in the masculine role and the other in the feminine, or if one is always right and the other always wrong, the global archetype will find it very difficult to allow them to switch roles. It usually assumes a stable distribution of roles, and any violation of this is perceived as a catastrophe—an extremely unpleasant phenomenon—and it strives to restore the usual distribution as quickly as possible.
For example, in a pair where one partner always hurts the other, and the second takes offense and blames them, a situation where the first partner suddenly takes offense at the second and blames them will immediately become extremely uncomfortable for both—assuming, of course, that the global archetype governs the situation. Both will feel awkward and will try to quickly restore the usual state of affairs. Externally, this will look like the second partner making an offended face, a long pause, and then both sighing in relief as they return to their usual disposition.
For the global archetype, a person feels responsible for the pair as a whole, perceiving it as a single entity and believing that their behavior can provoke their partner into acting incorrectly; in other words, projecting blame onto the other is not typical or ritualized here. In the local approach, guilt is usually placed either on oneself, the partner, or both, while the guilt of role misalignment is typically ignored. The global view of the pair often seems superficial, overly generalized, even indifferent to the local perspective. The local view, in turn, appears biased and dismissive of crucial aspects of interaction, particularly the role of the less emphasized partner in the pair.
Reader’s questions. Do you feel that your attention helps or, on the contrary, hinders your interlocutor from speaking? Do you forget about your partner’s presence during their monologue? Do you often use the pronoun “we” when communicating with your partner? Does being interrupted by your conversational partner throw you off balance? Do you believe that in love, one kisses while the other offers their cheek?
Imagine you and your partner are taking a short boat ride. How do you prefer to sit with them: face to face, back to back, looking in the same direction, with one of you rowing while the other does not, with each of you holding an oar, or in some other way, shifting roles in an undefined manner? Do you believe that a married couple should develop a shared position on every issue and that they should have no secrets from each other?
Acquaintance
We continue the topic of human social behavior. Seemingly ritualized situations—such as making acquaintances, farewells, and introductions—contain extraordinarily important information about a person, even when they remain strictly within the bounds of ritual. In these moments, a person typically chooses specific modalities of self-expression and perception that reveal much about the establishment of their subconscious.
So, you are meeting someone new. How do you look at them? What questions do you ask them? How do they look at you, and what are they primarily interested in?
You will immediately sense the global view of a new acquaintance upon first meeting. In the literal sense of the words, they will size you up from head to toe, and you will feel that their interest in you is not casual. From their first questions, you will sense that they are trying to place you on one of the shelves of their inner space. They will ask questions that help them classify you, much like an experienced entomologist classifies a newly caught insect: Do you have antennae? How many legs do you have? What color is your little body? Of course, this person will glean most of the information from you without asking any questions—visually and intuitively, much can be deduced. But from the questions they do ask, you will immediately understand that their behavior is governed by the global archetype: Which family are you from? What is your education and profession? Do you like music or travel? What is your approximate income level? Do you speak English? Are you related to your famous namesake?
The local view will be perceived by you primarily literally. The person will fixate on a specific part of your body or attire and will struggle to tear their gaze away from, say, your earrings, a button on your shirt, a diamond tie clip, or the curve of your hip. Eventually, their gaze will reluctantly shift to another detail. Finally, turning their attention to listening, your new acquaintance will ask questions like: What diminutive name did they call you by as a child? What was the name of the street where you spent your first years? What exactly do you do in your current job? What is your mother’s name? How old is she now? How many children do you have, and what are their ages and genders? What are their names? Where did you buy such wonderful mascara?
Reader’s questions. Can you recall the shade of your new acquaintance’s eye color after parting ways? The shape of their nose? The thickness of their eyebrows? Can you accurately recreate the most striking features of their appearance? What stands out more in your memory: the color of their hair or their physique, the shape of their nose or their posture? Do you feel dissatisfaction if you failed to get answers to the questions that interested you about your new acquaintance? Do minor details that don’t fit into the overall image of the person bother you? Are you concerned about the unity of the image that forms in your new acquaintance’s mind about you?
Farewell
Another revealing ritual moment for a person is the farewell. Everyone says goodbye differently and pays attention to different things. The local archetype, both psychologically and energetically, devalues situations that are coming to an end, such as a conversation. The person’s attention shifts to other topics; their thoughts are already elsewhere, so they may casually interrupt their own or their interlocutor’s sentence with something like, “Well, I’m off,” and leave, leaving the other genuinely perplexed: “How could they do that?” Or, in a more polite version, they might say, “Well, see you later, talk soon, I’ll call you tomorrow evening,” marking a future connection.
Under the local archetype, a person narrows their contact with their partner or the situation as a whole to a single most important moment, and that moment exhausts the interaction. For example, they might make eye contact with their conversational partner and then lower their gaze, ending the contact for themselves. Another option is a firm handshake, the meaning of which is to sever the current connection.
The global archetype demands a much broader program for winding down the conversation. The person seems to feel tied to the situation or partner by countless threads, each of which must be cut or extended into the future. Like a host leaving home for a long time and checking that all windows are closed, the water is turned off, no electrical appliances are running, and the necessary doors and locks are secured, a person under the global archetype will say farewell to their partner with words like: “Well, we’ve discussed this, we’ve talked about that, we’ll agree on this next time, give my regards to your wife, you looked great today, I liked how we talked, see you around these parts.”
It is clear that although the person is physically leaving the situation or saying goodbye to their partner, this happens only on a physical level, while internally, in their inner world, the situation continues—either firmly embedded there or, in some cases, completely erased, signifying a final break.
Under the local archetype, a person leaves as if they are erasing the situation from their inner world entirely—though they can return to it at any moment.
Reader’s questions. Do you find it difficult to say goodbye to someone? How long does it usually take you? Do you feel offended by people who can easily and quickly interrupt a conversation with you? Do you dwell on such behavior? When parting with someone, do you usually arrange a next meeting, or not? After saying goodbye to someone, do you continue an imaginary conversation with them, or is this not typical for you?
Compliments and Reactions to Them
Experience shows that even in the most formal and ritualized situations, where compliments are given in strict accordance with a certain etiquette, their modality plays a significant role. Some people do not recognize certain modalities in compliments—they either dismiss them or, conversely, accept them—while others operate with entirely different modalities.
The global modality of a compliment encompasses the person as a whole or even a broader situation than the person themselves, such as their role in a particular context. The local modality, on the other hand, isolates and emphasizes a specific, isolated aspect or part of a person’s character, behavior, or appearance.But even more significant may seem to be a person’s reaction to the compliments they receive. Specifically, a reaction in the local modality most often indicates their rejection of the compliment or unwillingness to listen to them. Meanwhile, a reaction in the global modality is generally more socially acceptable and reflects a relatively good-natured attitude toward what is being said.
Examples:
“You look wonderful today! It’s clear that you are a very intelligent woman, and moreover, extraordinarily beautiful! Your lips are very sensual! The detailing of your dress is beyond praise! Your nails are unusually beautiful! The most charming detail of your outfit is your bare navel!”
Replies:
“Oh, you think too highly of me! Really, is that how I truly am? You are so kind to me! I’d like to believe it! But is my blouse not bad? I only look good, but I feel awful! My lips are indeed nothing special, but my ears are completely useless!”
Complaints and grievances
In many psychologically tense situations, a person begins to express their dissatisfaction to their partner or the situation itself. The modalities in which they voice their thoughts and feelings about it play a crucial role for both themselves and those around them. To gain clarity, it is sometimes necessary to ask directly whether their grievances are local or global in nature, and such a question can sometimes force a person to reconsider their character.
The global archetype reveals itself through summarizing words like “in general,” “always,” “as a rule,” followed by a grievance or a systematic list of them.
“I have a few grievances toward you. Some relate to your behavior toward me, some to how you treat the children, and some to your behavior at work.”
The global modality is often used as a concluding one, meaning the person accumulates negative feelings and thoughts over a long period, then generalizes them and presents them to their partner or opponent.
“Overall, your behavior has improved somewhat, however… thirdly… and finally…”
At the same time, a person expressing complaints and grievances in the global modality often proves completely unprepared to switch to the local modality. If asked, “Well, then be specific—give an example of exactly what you mean?”—they may become completely confused and unable to respond, so their words lose all weight, even if they may be justified in reality. This abrupt shift in archetype completely undermines their confidence and ability to continue their point.
Rules, as a rule, tend to be associative and sometimes strike with precision, while in other cases, their demands are absolutely unattainable.
“Your smile offended me! Your last phrase insulted me, and now you must apologize on your knees! You don’t care about me enough on Saturdays!”
Most people dislike being confronted with grievances or complaints. Do specific accusations never lead to anything good? Then what about general reproaches? Do you prefer a creative, spontaneous approach here?
Language
The next very important point in our discussion is human language—in ellipses, that is, in the words a person omits, as if implying but not stating them; in logical emphasis; in intonation; and in certain specific features of word usage, such as how a person uses or omits proper nouns and personal pronouns.
The global archetype produces many linguistic features to which the reader will undoubtedly have paid attention. These include the use of various generalizing words, such as “generally,” “overall,” “comprehensive observation,” “multifaceted view,” the use of abstract concepts, abstract generalizing qualities, a tendency toward long phrases containing rather vague words and expressions without substantial concretization. Even if the person makes a specific statement, the global archetype forces them to expand its meaning or add several other specific statements, which are then combined in speech with words like “thus,” “as a result,” forming a coherent picture of the following content:
“Having surveyed Mount Sinai from the north and south, east and west, having circled its base and ascended to its summit, the Lord deemed it worthy to reveal His message to His people there.”
For speech under the global archetype, ellipses—shortened forms—are atypical; instead, expanded constructions are characteristic. If ellipses are used, they typically refer to qualities the speaker considers insignificant, details, or minor points. For example, wanting to say, “Fresh, fragrant strawberries are sold at the market,” a person guided by the global archetype would struggle to say something like, “I was… uh… sold… uh… berries.”
To extract specific information from them, they must be questioned with clarifying questions—”which? what kind? where? how?”—to which they respond either extremely reluctantly, not at all, or in a way that is not truly an answer, because to answer properly, they would simply need to change their modality.
The local archetype produces a completely different type of speech and logical emphasis. This person typically uses words denoting concrete qualities applied to specific people or objects and avoids generalizing words, silently assuming that any generalization will be made by their conversation partner. In the local modality, a person happily uses the names of specific people, as if attaching them to their owners. In the global modality, names seem detached from people and to some extent become abstract categories. For example, to a foreigner, the word “Ivan” may mean any Russian, just as during the war with Germany, “Fritz” meant any German.
When a person under the local archetype says “he” or “they,” it is always clear exactly whom they mean. Conversely, when these words are used under the global archetype, they most often carry a vague meaning. The same applies to the pronoun “here.” In local usage, it refers to a specific place, such as a corner of a room.Under the global archetype, it may refer, for example, to the planet Earth. The logical emphasis of the local archetype places it on the most specific, most concrete element of the sentence. For instance, in the simple phrase “Nikanor walked quickly down the road,” the logical emphasis under the local archetype would fall either on the word “quickly” or on the word “road.” The global archetype, on the other hand, would likely place the logical emphasis on the word “walked” or omit it entirely, as if equalizing all words in significance and accentuating the general meaning of the phrase. In terms of its level of abstraction, this phrase would be perceived roughly like the phrase “All his life, Nikanor strove for truth.”
Reader’s question. Can you translate texts from the local modality into the global one? Compose a short love note in the local modality, then translate it into the global language. See which of these two versions will have a stronger impact on the recipient. Think about which words you would use to express gratitude for gifts and services provided by your loved ones. Can you express your feelings in the opposite modality? Will it come across as sincere? Recall how your friends and acquaintances express outrage; if you don’t remember, observe them in the moment they voice their negative emotions. Ask them to shift modalities and watch how their behavior changes. Try to remember your last dialogue—better yet, write it down. In which modality did it remain with you?
EMOTIONS
This sphere of human life is little subject to rational analysis and comprehension, though its role in human existence is difficult to overestimate. Emotions are the very essence of life. They are what make life full or, conversely, empty, joyful or sad, anxious or calm, meaningful or devoid of meaning, rich with hidden significance or stripped of it. All of this is experienced with profound intensity, sometimes vividly for a person, and expressed however the spirit moves them—at best, or, at worst, with the active assistance of a trait that distorts and conceals what a person wishes to convey with precision and completeness.
However, beyond the fact that most people cannot adequately express their own emotions, almost no one knows how to correctly perceive the emotions of others, overlaying them with the filters of their subconscious shaped by a certain accentuation of modalities. To avoid this, one must understand the vast and diverse spectrum of possible manifestations within each emotion, and higher archetypes can help us examine these emotions in detail through their modalities.
It is also crucial to recognize that how a person experiences an emotion and how they express it in words and actions are often entirely different things. An experienced observer, a skilled psychologist, can perceive this difference and understand a person more deeply than they understand themselves.
In general, when speaking of emotions, it should be kept in mind that they are better perceived and expressed directly rather than relying solely on words. Words that express feelings are far more likely to mislead than to clarify, and what is written below may serve as an illustration of this point.
Love
Nothing can be more deceptive than the question: “Do you love me?”—whether the answer is positive or negative. What, after all, is meant by it? Depending on the modalities in which the question is posed and understood, as well as how the answer is framed and interpreted, the meaning of both can be entirely different.
A global understanding of love means, first, something greater than an emotion, and second, if we speak of the emotional plane, the feeling of love encompasses everything and extends to all manifestations of the beloved being. “I love you” in the global sense implies complete acceptance of you, complete forgiveness, complete understanding, boundless compassion, and perhaps total self-sacrifice on my part—if it should be required. Under the sway of the global archetype, a person experiencing love feels it precisely this way but is hardly inclined to express such feelings explicitly, that is, in clear words as done in this text. They love, and that is all that needs to be said; no words, in their view, are necessary, and could it be otherwise?
The local understanding of love, however, has nothing in common with the global. It is deeply personal. Some part of me, at certain moments, loves certain traits or aspects of the object of my affection. A moment later, that object may present itself in a different aspect, and my love may change its character or vanish altogether. Or I myself may change in some way, shift my attention elsewhere, instantly forget about the object of my affection, only to return to it a moment later—perhaps with love, perhaps not, or perhaps something else entirely may occur, something I cannot yet imagine, and in this sense, I cannot define myself.
At the same time, local love, compared to global love, can be far more attentive to the object of affection, noticing more details, finding more charm, allure, and uniqueness in them. Global love, for all its merits, can be extremely inattentive to its object and may serve as a soft, pleasant backdrop that the person in love mostly forgets, considering it self-evident.
The local archetype makes love a far more vivid and saturated experience, shifting from moment to moment, revealing new traits and details in the beloved being.
Reader’s question. Do you consider constancy in love a virtue? How do you understand this steadfastness? Do you believe that when a woman looks with interest at other men, she deprives her partner of something? Do you think fleeting feelings of jealousy strengthen love? Do you believe that a child’s love for their parents should evolve and take on qualitatively different forms with age? Are the concepts of love and devotion identical to you? Have you ever encountered what is called the “two dogs effect,” which suggests that if an owner has two dogs, each receives more love than if they lived with the owner alone? Do you believe in love at first sight? Do you think it is better when love develops over a significant period of time? Do you believe that in the case of a breakup, the one who is left is always to blame?
Anger
Nowadays, this word is used less frequently than “indignation” or “aggression,” but the emotional state itself, of course, does not become any less common. So, the feeling of anger. In many cases, it is unpleasant, often socially condemned, yet objectively existing psychological reality for any person.
What forms can anger take? A global experience of anger can mean two different things. The first is that anger fully engulfs the person, as they say, “blinds their eyes.” At that moment, the person experiences the emotion as such and is fundamentally unable to interact adequately with the outside world. The feeling of anger may not be particularly intense, yet it fully encompasses the person and taints the rest of their emotions, their entire perception of the world, and their self-expression. Everything they do is variations on the theme of anger. They may stamp their feet in anger, scream in anger, wring their hands in anger, weep in anger, remain silent in anger, or even breathe in anger—the essence remains anger.
The second understanding of global anger is that the focus of this emotion becomes an external object toward which the person’s anger is directed, and the anger taints that object entirely—all its qualities, all its manifestations, all its details. This kind of anger cannot be appeased, nor can one justify themselves before it; the only recourse is to ask the person to completely change their state, so to speak, to “turn anger into mercy.” They may comply, but any local apologies will be of no use.
The only adequate response is a global acknowledgment by the object of anger of their guilt or worthlessness.
Local anger, on the other hand, does not fully consume the person.He feels this emotion as temporary, and most importantly, not the only one present in him at the moment, which is very hard for a person driven by the global archetype to understand. However, when experiencing local anger, a person either is controlled by it—that is, feels that they could change this emotion at any moment—or clearly realizes that nearby, very close, there is another emotion existing alongside it. In other words, mercy, compassion, and love coexist right next to it, and it is precisely anger that expresses them. Therefore, in local anger, a person does not attach such fundamental importance to their state, nor to the judgments they make in this state, nor to the conclusions they are inclined to draw in the heat of the moment.
On the contrary, in a state of global anger, a person usually attaches absolute significance to their judgments and conclusions. Accordingly, local anger directed at an object typically focuses on any aspect or detail of that object, and the person in such a state either consciously realizes or subconsciously feels that considering another part or aspect of the same object would evoke entirely different emotions in them. Thus, local anger, like local criticism, is much easier to bear.But while global anger may be compared to a downpour suddenly falling on your head, local anger is like an arrow that strikes and pierces a specific part of your body. When people strive to master their anger and make it manageable, most tend to reduce the amplitude of this emotion, whereas a significant shift can come from altering its modality. For example, when feeling global anger, it is useful to ask yourself what exactly is irritating me, what in this object provokes such indignation, and whether it has other aspects or sides that evoke different emotions in me. Conversely, when trying to overcome local anger, it is helpful to take a broader view of the object of anger or of yourself, to look at the situation from a distance and assess it from more general positions than it appears at the moment.
Questions for the reader. Compare the modalities of the anger you feel within yourself with those you express externally. Are you accurate in conveying the modality of your anger? When you unleash your dissatisfaction on a partner, do you pay attention to how they perceive your modality? Can you determine this based on their reactions? What qualities of youth irritate you the most? Are there specific representatives who seem to embody its typical flaws, or are there none? Is your dissatisfaction with family members of a local or global nature? What in the actions of local authorities provokes the strongest rejection in you? Can you shift your anger from a local modality to a global one and back? Try doing this in writing, first expressing your dissatisfaction with household matters concretely, then in general terms. Do you prefer to cite examples and refer to specific circumstances in anger, or do you appeal more to general categories?
Pity is a very important emotion; it directly connects a person to the world, and in some cases even to themselves. However, like any other emotion, depending on circumstances and modalities, pity can be experienced and expressed in entirely different ways. Global pity is experienced differently depending on where the emphasis lies—on the person feeling it or on the object of pity. If the emphasis is on the person themselves, they feel that their entire and total experience is one of pity. No other emotions are present at that moment, or they are weak and heavily colored by the dominant emotion that has taken hold. This state in itself is not particularly constructive and indicates a person’s weakness, yet it is very common. Subconsciously, such pity always includes self-pity, accompanied by a passive stance—an almost subconscious call to the surrounding world for help, sympathy, and compassion.
Global pity directed toward an object is experienced quite differently. Here, the person is in a stronger position and generally feels within themselves the potential and ability to help the object of pity, which appears to them as unfortunate, suffering, and deprived in all aspects, relationships, and details. Yet the main point is not the details; the key is the general attitude: the object is in a bad state, it is suffering, it needs help, and the specifics can wait—what matters now is this very fact. This is how we look at a crying child, a stray dog freezing in the snow, or a destitute country groaning under a dictator’s yoke.
Local pity looks entirely different. As an emotion experienced by a person, local pity implies their incomplete immersion in it and the existence alongside it—or parallel to it—of other, possibly quite different emotions. For example, alongside local pity, a person may feel judgment, indignation, or denial. As for the object of pity, the local archetype isolates a specific boundary within it that evokes the feeling of pity, while the object as a whole may elicit a completely different attitude, and other parts of it may provoke entirely different emotions. Many people perceive pity as a form of humiliation. Perhaps global pity can sometimes be seen this way, but to perceive local pity as humiliation is always a misunderstanding, because it is fundamentally unrelated to the global experience of the object. For instance, I may pity a dog that has injured its paw, bandage it, yet does this mean I have humiliated the dog? After all, it could be a very large dog, say a Saint Bernard, and I may treat it with great respect, which does not contradict local pity toward it, even if it may be incompatible with global pity.
Local pity is more specific, more informative, and sometimes experienced by a person more acutely than global pity, though the opposite can also be true—it depends on the individual’s psychotype. In general, there are people for whom local pity is not a true experience; they only truly feel global pity, while others have the opposite mental framework. Much depends on the accentuation of the local and global archetypes in their psyche overall, and the emotion of pity provides a significant key to understanding this situation.
Questions for the reader. In what modality do you feel pity for members of your family, distant relatives, friends, colleagues, or your country? Which approach is more effective in evoking pity in you from another person—when they describe their troubles concretely or when they dramatize their situation in general terms?What expressive techniques do you use to try to evoke pity in others? Assess these techniques from the perspective of the holistic archetype. Try to perform the same actions, changing the modality—that is, from local to global and vice versa. Pay attention to the modality of your partner’s reaction. What kind of pity is the strongest inner experience for you, one that pushes you toward specific actions? Try to answer the same question about your friends and acquaintances.
Anxiety and worry
The state of anxiety, a high level of which is called anxiety, is inherent in humans. It is obviously necessary for survival in an environment full of dangers. However, like other emotions, it can be focused inward or outward, perceived and expressed in different ways. Global anxiety is an emotion that usually draws a person’s attention inward. The same applies to worry. In other words, at such times, the external world seems to cease to exist, and the state completely envelops the person, isolating them from external stimuli—that is, from sensory signals.
A smaller framework encompassing a certain area of a person’s external or internal life can give rise to anxiety related to that area, and this psychological state is less total but is rarely constructive on its own. This kind of background anxiety about one part of life or another object as a whole is, apparently, a normal condition for the psyche to function, but it should not rise too high without being noticed. If the level of this anxiety exceeds a certain threshold, the anxiety must change its modality—namely, the person must focus their attention on what exactly is troubling them.
However, changing the modality from global to local is not so easy, especially when the person is not consciously aware of their own mental state. Local anxiety is usually an emotional phase preceding a specific action. It highlights a particular aspect or part of an object, usually external but sometimes internal, and emphasizes it. Psychologically, this note sounds like a preparatory step toward resolving the final chord of a specific action. If this does not happen, we can say that the person is in a neurotic state.
For a neurotic state, on the contrary, either global anxiety of a certain kind is characteristic—one that is not specified within it—or local anxiety that shifts from one element to another, from one part to another, but does not settle or resolve into any action. Such jumps from one element to another represent an imperfect form of psychological defense, but it is, apparently, better than nothing—better than the painful fixation of attention on the same troubling factor that cannot be removed in any way.
Questions for the reader:
Do you consider global anxiety a normal state for yourself?
Do you strive to rid yourself of it by specifying the object of anxiety or its cause?
When you worry, do your thoughts scatter in different directions, or do they focus?
Do you try to outline the circle of your worries, or is it boundless for you?
Are you prone to worrying about trifles; in advance; after the danger has passed?
Are you inclined to dissect the future into possible scenarios and analyze them?
Do you believe that hope dies last?
What torments you more—real troubles or the anxiety associated with their possible manifestation?
Joy
The author doubts that the reader’s life is completely cloudless. If such people do exist, they do not read psychology books. However, the author has no doubt that the reader also experiences joyful moments in life. What is joy? Different people experience and perceive it differently, and to better understand them, it is important to pay attention to the modality of this emotional state. This does not mean that we should constantly track it consciously, but in some cases, it is very important to understand it correctly.
Global joy, like other emotions, envelops a person completely, coloring their entire mental state and all their life manifestations: they laugh joyfully, smile joyfully, open doors joyfully, go to the store joyfully, go to bed joyfully. This background can be stronger or weaker, but there are people for whom a joyful general background is the normal state of life. They have something to teach an attentive observer.
Global joy as a state does not mean that everything in a person’s life is good, that all problems are solved, that enlightenment has been achieved, that no evil remains on earth or that this evil is not directed at this person—but none of this prevents the existence of their joyful background. Global joy directed at an object means its positive acceptance by the person as a whole, but again, this does not imply that the object has no negative traits that overshadow it.
There are social situations where the expression of joy is inappropriate and unacceptable, but even when a person in a state of global joy simply attends such situations without saying anything or even smiling, their presence still has a soothing effect. The heavy, gloomy state and sorrow of those around them soften.
Local joy can appear much brighter. It is a beam that strikes the inner world of a person or radiates outward into the surrounding space, and it can be almost like a laser beam. For a short time, it completely transforms a certain area of the inner world or an external object. However, this transformation is short-lived, and the feeling of joy shifts to another area or illuminates another object, while the old one remains in the dark and sometimes feels neglected.
The local archetype includes fleeting joy. It is often subtler, more precise, possibly brighter, and certainly more changeable than global joy. It makes no claims but, being a regular companion of a person, adorns their life, perhaps even more than a global joyful background.
Questions for the reader:
Are you able to appreciate fleeting joy?
Can you rejoice in it, knowing that it is purely specific and short-lived?
Do you easily smile at strangers?
Do you perceive a smile from fate as a gift, or is it for you no more than an advance payment for which you will later have to pay dearly, perhaps heavily?
Imagine a wheel of fortune. Can you see it, and if so, what trajectory does it follow near you?
Are there areas of life in which you are invariably accompanied by success?
Are you able to rejoice in someone else’s happiness?
How sincere is your joy?
How long does it last?
We now turn to the next important topic, namely, the realm of human physical sensations, or what is esoterically referred to as the life of the etheric body.
Well-being
The question “How do you feel?” is understood differently by different people, depending on the modality of perceiving their well-being to which they are accustomed and which they usually consider the only one. However, different people may have different modalities.
Global perception of one’s body, or more precisely, the sensation of one’s body, is typical of most healthy people—or of people who are seriously ill, whose illness is general in nature, or whose local symptom is not too pronounced compared to the overall severity of their condition. For this archetype, typical responses are related to weight. A person says they feel unusually light or, conversely, heavy, agile or sluggish: “I’m flying on wings” or “I can barely drag my feet”—all these responses indicate a global perception of one’s body.
A local perspective, on the other hand, singles out a particular part of the body and focuses on its sensations. This is typical, for example, when a part of the body hurts. As if physiology itself prompts a person to pay special attention to a bruised finger or a menacingly throbbing boil. However, positive experiences of the physical plane can also be local. For instance, the sensations after massaging a particular part of the body. The skin enjoys fresh air and sunbaths, swimming; individual muscles and muscle groups respond positively to adequate exercise. Pleasant signals can also come from a stomach that is properly filled.Positive sensations in the sexual organs are familiar, it seems, to the vast majority of people. A question for the reader. Are you familiar with the sensation when you almost physically “fall apart into pieces”? Can you describe the opposite state? While listening to your inner state, is it difficult to determine the source of discomfort? Does it somehow inexplicably strive to escape your attention? Do you like to complain about pain and discomfort in different parts of the body? Are you inclined to assess your well-being in general? For yourself, for others? Does the greeting “Bless you!” have any meaning for you beyond purely ritualistic? When embracing another person, is it important for you how exactly to position your arms around them? Does it matter to you where you are kissed and where you kiss your loved ones? During sexually charged interactions, are experiences in parts of the body other than the genital zones important to you? Do you believe that erogenous zones are individual for each person and that it is worth paying attention to in intimate situations? Does your body retain the memory of other people’s touch? Which parts of your body are most vulnerable to inappropriate touches? Does the last question make sense to you?
The sensation of the external world
A great mistake is the idea of the commonality or uniformity of how people perceive the external world, even though our sense organs are arranged roughly the same. However, despite this, the internal experiences of the body’s responses to differentStimuli in different people are completely different, and this difference is greater than one can imagine. Therefore, we, as always, consider not only the physical sensations a person experiences from the surrounding space but also the modality of their perception by the individual. The global archetype gives a person a tendency to integrate the bodily sensations received from the external world, perceiving them as a whole. When evaluating and characterizing their bodily sensations, such a person will say: “I feel good. I am comfortable. I am pleased.” Or, on the contrary: “It’s harsh, uncomfortable, unsettling.” In this case, if they are uncomfortable, they do not pretend to be otherwise, giving a general assessment. They truly do not notice the specific reason for their discomfort. If you switch them to the local archetype, specific details may emerge. For example, that their shoes are tight, or that they are cold, specifically that their neck is freezing because it is poorly covered by a scarf, or that cigarette smoke is bothering them, or anything else. But as long as the local archetype is not activated, the global one integrates all these private discomforts and delivers only a general assessment to the person’s consciousness.
The local archetype, on the other hand, reveals, sometimes with extraordinary precision, the location and nature of sensations from the external world. That is, a person can vividly feel sensations from their feet while walking on hot sand, or while kneeling, they can distinctly feel the texture of the boards covering the floor, which creaks underfoot, ruffling their hair—especially a strand near the right temple—or feel pain in their eyes from overly bright reflections on the waves of a lake. All these sensations, which may be completely different in various parts of the body, exist simultaneously in them and are not integrated in their consciousness. They lack the general sensation characteristic of the global archetype. By shifting their attention across different parts of their body, they may find themselves in either paradise or hellish regions, unable to achieve a balanced, moderate perception.
Questions for the reader. Do you experience physical discomfort when changing your place of residence, for example, when going from the city to nature, entering the water, or coming back out? How often in your life does it happen that you cannot clearly answer whether you are comfortable in your environment? Do you enjoy contrast procedures (quick transitions from cold to heat, from light to shadow, etc.)? Do you value the stability of your bodily sensations? Is it difficult for you to part with a chronic illness? To radically change your surrounding climate? To fly by plane for two days to a different climatic zone?
Food
Attitudes toward food, eating habits, the foods themselves that a person consumes, and the way they relate to them are not only an important part of anyone’s life—even if they do not attach significant importance to it—but also a mirror of the archetypes dominating their subconscious. So let’s examine what a person eats and how they relate to it.
The universal archetype accepts the process of eating as a whole. It usually requires a person to develop a certain eating regimen and a structured eating plan, addressing various aspects such as caloric intake, vitamins, minerals, detoxification, and more. The topic of food often includes fasting days and various universal schemes. The global view of the eating process, spreading broadly, subordinates the entire life of a person to the process of nutrition. This is evident in the temporal markers by which a person regulates their life. These markers also appear in the everyday speech of all people, though they may not assign them direct significance. Phrases such as “lunchtime,” “post-lunch rest,” or “we’ll discuss this over dinner” speak for themselves. This is nothing other than the triumph of the global archetype applied to the process of eating and extended to the entire life of a person.
The local view of the process of eating is much more democratic and is characteristic of children, for whom food is not separated from the general process of their lives. They tend to, as adults say, “graze”—that is, at any moment, sneak into the kitchen, grab a tasty morsel, eat it immediately, and continue their games. Many adults live by the same principle, understanding and considering such behavior incorrect but being unable to change it. The reason is not always weakness of character; sometimes physiological and psychological factors are to blame. However, the author does not believe that a strict eating regimen is organically inherent in a person. Perhaps the truth is highly individual.
The local archetype tends to choose the food that currently seems most delicious to a person and eat it without thinking. Perhaps gourmets are largely known precisely for the local archetype, as it gives a person a refined taste, the ability to discern the nuances of their gastronomic sensations, and, at a high level, the ability to create true masterpieces of this art. Under the influence of the local archetype, a person eats and fasts sometimes by inspiration, without considering calories or food combinations. Ideas about separate eating and systematic fasting undoubtedly belong to the global archetype.
One could say that the global approach is more systematic, while the local one is more sincere, and nowhere is this more apparent than in eating habits and preferences.
Questions for the reader. Do you adhere to a strict eating regimen, both in terms of timing and food choices? Do you consider this beneficial, necessary, desirable, or unnecessary for yourself? Describe your behavior in a situation where your spouse returns from a business trip and brings back many sweet fruits from southern countries. Options: you immediately rush to them and start eating them messily; you divide them into several days and eat them at specific times; you ignore the fact that they are in the house, not changing your eating habits or diet at all.
When eating a salad, do you strive to taste each of its components separately, or do you focus on its overall flavor? For some time after eating, do you listen to the sensations in your stomach? Can you distinguish the nuances of hunger, when your body asks for a particular type of food? Does it ever happen that you are full from one type of food but still hungry for another? Are you inclined to separate the processes of drinking and eating or combine them?
Appearance and Movement
Of course, the leading archetypes of a person manifest in the external appearance of their physical body, in how they move, dress, and are perceived by others. However, to specifically read, see, and feel the influence of a particular archetype is a high art that is largely intuitive and achieved through long and persistent practice.
In what key can these observations be made? The global archetype is evident in the fact that a person’s body, both in stillness and in motion, appears as a unified whole in which everything is organic, nothing is extraneous, and nothing stands out. Even if some part of it catches the eye, its connection to the other parts is immediately apparent, and the organic unity restores the perception of the body as a whole. The same applies to movement. This body moves in such a way that it organically blends into the surrounding environment, and no part of it seems extraneous during movement. This quality, described by words such as agility, grace, composure, is characteristic of multi-sport athletes.
Meanwhile, the local perspective can reveal flaws and imperfections in any part of a person’s body, yet strangely, they do not stand out or appear to exist independently. Instead, they weave into the body as if disappearing within it.
In their clothing, a person guided by the global archetype primarily cares about a certain overall style that will govern their appearance and movements. This general style is chosen in accordance with the environment in which they find themselves. For them, there is a significant difference between street clothing, home clothing, formal wear, festive attire, and clothing worn on ceremonial occasions. When they put on such clothing, everything changes: their mood, facial expression, gait, and gestures.The local archetype provides a view of the human body as if it were composed of separate fragments, some of which may be very beautiful, others grotesque, some merely expressive, and some seemingly not even intended by nature—at least, the eye never rests on them. Any attempt to perceive the body as a whole is doomed to failure. The individual parts are so striking that the gaze is inevitably drawn to them, impressed by their beauty, ugliness, or peculiarity, yet the overall picture stubbornly refuses to form. When this person moves, the observer’s attention is likewise captured by specific parts of the body or gestures—head turns, the movement of legs, and so on. It is extremely difficult to grasp the overall nature of their gait. When they traverse a space filled with objects—walking through a forest, pushing through a crowd—they stand out vividly in that environment; yet they rarely blend into it organically. Instead, their body vividly accentuates certain elements of the surroundings, for example, colliding with a tree, stumbling over a root, and collapsing into it in a picturesque pose. In clothing, this person favors certain accentuations, strokes, bright details, elements, or colors that catch the eye. Yet they are entirely unable to keep track of their entire outfit, as their efforts are directed toward two or three elements they currently deem most important—the hat, cufflinks, or tie—while everything else somehow escapes their notice. However, how others perceive them often does not align with what they themselves focus on; though others, too, are likely to look at details, they will be entirely different ones, so they will see this person in a completely different light.
The local perspective is typical of self-assessment in young people. They fixate on a nose or a stomach that utterly dissatisfies them, ignoring how the rest of the body casts light on these questionable parts of their figure. This kind of gaze, shifting from the local archetype to the global one, can only be overcome with age, when primitive self-expression and self-assertion are no longer relevant; though sometimes, it persists for a lifetime.
Questions for the reader.
Does your physical body satisfy you overall?
What complaints do you have about its individual parts?
Are these complaints realistic?
When you first look at an unfamiliar person, what do you focus on?
Is your attention holistic, or do you seek out the most striking details?
What are these details?
Which qualities of a person immediately catch your eye?
Are there any qualities you overlook at first acquaintance—qualities that others find significant but that seem unimportant to you?
How many times a day do you change clothes?
Do you believe that minor blemishes do not exist?
Do you think that overall harmony and attractiveness of appearance are the key to a woman’s success?
Do you equate human beauty with the beauty of their face?
Are details of clothing important to you—your own, your acquaintances’, friends’, or strangers’?
Can you examine a person for twenty minutes without boredom, continually discovering new information about them?
Can you compose a verbal portrait of your spouse that would distinguish them from anyone else?
