Positive and Negative interpretations of catalyst

[Plenum]

I was out with a friend last night, and he was rather exhausted, and in his frame of mind he was rather misinterpreting/misunderstanding much of what I was saying or trying to say.

he kept accusing me of being sarcastic and trying to undermine him

now, as some of you might appreciate, I may take many approaches to what I do and say, but the use of sarcasm is one of the rare tools I may pull out of my toolkit, and employ for specific occasions (as a comic reply to a spambot, for eg). Its not something I employ very often, and its not something I use lightly, without truly considering the circumstances.

anyway, my friend was tired, and rather skewing my words to being attacks.

I was sort of reminded of the positive/negative interpretations of catalyst.

now, to my understanding, a positive use of catalyst is one in which one ends up with the end-result of feeling closer to the other individual, or there is an acceptance, and final resolution to a loving/understanding attitude. Despite whatever the catalyst may be (it may be quite harsh, something deliberately hurtful, it may indeed be someone questioning you or mocking you), you come to a point of view where the other is not seen as separate.

the negative interpretation of catalyst, however, is the filtering of catalyst so that one sees the self as distinct from the other. The catalyst is turned into - "you are attacking me", "you are mocking me", "I am superior to you", etc etc despite what the original (maybe positive intentions) of what the other person originally were.

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now, as these forums illustrate (and the many cognitive distortions that result), one can turn almost any positive catalyst into a negative interpretation, and almost any negative catalyst (that which is delivered with disdain, sarcasm) into a positive catalyst.

how you have interpretated the catalyst depends on how you are feeling after the catalyst is processed. Think of the individual who said the words that delivered the catalyst, and if one thinks loving thoughts, accepting thoughts, happiness to be around that individual (despite whatever catalyst was offered) it is most likely that a positive interpretation of that catalyst was the end result.

if, however, if you say that persons's name, and the image is of being hurt, or being attacked, or 'I'm going to offer the best rebuttal to his argument", or I don't want to be in the same room as that person, or I don't ever want to interact with you ever again, or anything like that, then the catalyst is most likely to have been turned in a negative fashion (increased separation from the other self).

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I have said this before, but in my experience, these forums offer some of the most abundant, dense, various (lots of variety) and challenging catalyst that I have come across in my life. Used in a positive way (positive interpretation) you can decrease the amount of reactivity (increased acceptance) you may have in the most remarkable way.

"The nature of polarity is interesting in that those experiences offered to the Significator as positive frequently become recorded as productive of biases which may be seen to be negative, whereas the fruit of those experiences apparently negative is frequently found to be helpful in the development of the service-to-others bias. As this is perhaps the guiding characteristic of that which the mind processes and records, these symbols of polarity have thusly been placed."