The Price of Face

22 is the dark jewel egotism and it can create many catch 22 situations. People do not as a rule, in the common socio-political construct, like to lose face. This notion of “face” can be very expensive indeed.

One can cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Face is the dreaming symbol for social self-image which belongs to the class of mayas and illusions. Despite what your social media tries to push, you are not the image imagined and advertised thereupon. That is just some stuff you made up.

People like to “win” arguments or battles in order to save “face”.

I have been in numerous situations where people have expected me to act in accordance with what they imagine face saving behaviour might be. They were fighting a “battle” on the assumption that the normal rules of society and “face” applied.

“He will come round, he will break. He will say sorry because of the guilt trip I laid upon him.”

When this does not happen a kind of catch 22 situation results. The protagonist does not want to lose face but starts to understand that holding breath and crossing fingers is not the answer. What to do? If one gives in, one loses faces. So, one cuts off one’s nose to spite one’s face and leaves a totally unnecessary bloody mess. Because the “he” here did not succumb to the manipulation a loss, perhaps profound has resulted. It was about something not real – face.

Face can be very expensive indeed.

Tens of thousands have people have died because people do not want to lose face.

Deterrence as it is often used / bandied about relies on this notion of face. 

“They killed a few thousand in October. How dare they!!”

“We will destroy their country, kill fifty thousand, maim a hundred thousand more so as to save face because we were caught napping! Are we not heroes? That’ll show them!”

People can try to justify so many things with this emotive notion of face. It is cyclical and silly.

He offended me, I must offend him back or get him cancelled as punishment. My face got upset that he called me fat even though my BMI is 40. I must make him pay for offending my face. I’ll send the message on my way going to the pharmacy for my Ozempic.

Face it seems requires punishment as deterrence for questions or contradictory versions of reality. Face does not like to be challenged because it is the outer expression of egotism, self-importance and victim martyr tendency…

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Has face and the attempt at preserving thereof ever worked out very expensive for you?

Was it worth it in the final analysis?

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Isabella – Manipulation – Attack Dreams 31-11-21

Here are last nights dreams they are separated by an interlude of being awake.

The first dream is set in London, somewhere close to the centre. In the room next door to me there is a panel of science academics sat around the table. They are going over applicants for a job as a University Physics lecturer. There are more than seven of the academics. The room in which they are seated is grand as is the table and chairs. They are a mix of men and women the men are wearing suits and the women are smartly dressed. It is all very English. They are all my age or older.

They call me in from the next room and say that they want to offer me the job. This surprises me somewhat because I have not applied for it. They say that the salary is £30,000. That sounds very low to me for a university in London. In the dream I note that 30 is the dreaming symbol for manipulation. They say the reason that the salary is small is that the job comes with an apartment as part of the salary. Where is the apartment? It is in central London near Down street which I know to be near Downing Street. I ask is there any previous coursework. They hand me a folder of lecture notes which I skim through, and it does not look too tricky. I think that I can do this job.

They say that they will get the previous incumbent to show me the flat in central London. I am introduced to Isabella who is a talk dark haired Mediterranean women about twenty years younger than me. Her hair is long, and she has a flowing black skirt and dangly silver earrings. She leads me off to Down street. When we get there the normal passenger lift is broken so we have to go around the back to use the big goods lift.  We get in and she hands me a large old-style key of steel. Which I put in my left trousers pocket. She says that she lost the job because they did not like her blog content. I say that she should perhaps read my blog.

She and I stand facing one door. I turn and look into her eyes. They morph into swirling spiral flames for a second. She is unsure if I have noted this. Several other people mostly young men get into the lift. One of the men, a muscular eastern European, puts his hand on my shoulder. I brush this off. The lift doors close and we start to move upwards. Halfway to the flat the Eastern European man stops the lift and opens the double doors. He then proceeds to jump out of the lift onto the car park several floors below. After him three waves of young men also jump out of the lift. Some land safely, others pick up minor injuries and a couple die. Isabella and I look down at the carnage, close the door and proceed to the flat.

I know it is late and that my flatmates in North London won’t be able to get in because I have the key to that flat as well. I take the key out and open the door. I step into an ornate hallway. The man from the lift is there and he says that I owe him money to get out of the contract. He reckons that I owe him £100. I say that I do not. He says that he will not let me go until I pay him or join him. He pulls out a knife and asks if I have ever played stabby stabby. No. He then tries to attack me and stab me with the knife which he is holding in his right hand. He is a lot younger and fitter than me. I catch the top of his hand and apply kote gaeshi {an Aikido wrist lock /throw.}. Which sends him swirling through the air and leaves me with the knife in my right hand. I go over to the window and throw the knife out.

He continues to attack me bare handed. I wrestle him to the floor despite the fact that he is fitter and stronger than me. Using my favourite Judo choke hold I choke him out and he becomes unconscious.

I awake briefly, exchange a few words with the wife and fall back to sleep.

The wife and I are staying at a cliff side villa near an azure blue sea. At the end of the garden is a path out to a ledge in the cliff side. It is just wide enough to sunbathe on parallel to the cliff. The wife and I venture out onto this cliff. I sit down and she lies down. I have a small fishing rod and cast out a bait into the azure blue sea some 20-30 metre below. I can see that some fish are interested in my bait. Some have a nibble; another fish pops its head out of the water and looks me directly in the eye. Soon the bait is gone. I go back into the villa and the wife moves to where I was seated. In the refrigerator I find some snacks which are yet to be cooked. They comprise some beef mince and some cheese in a sort of meat ball. I bait my hook and leave the baited hook and fishing line on the grass in the garden. I go back inside for a glass of milk. When I come out some wasps or bees are on the bait and are dragging the fishing rod around the garden. I call the wife to see this phenomenon. She comes off the cliff edge and watches too. She is alarmed by this.

We move away from the wasps, and she finds a part of a dream catcher on the floor. She picks this up and reunites it with the other part which is hanging from a eucalyptus tree. We explore the garden and find a small statuette of a witch with “traditional” pointy hat. It is about one foot tall. I pick it up and suddenly it morphs into a full-sized woman dressed entirely in black with a full black flowing skirt. I know this witch to be Isabella. She is trying to embrace me to that she can do some evil to me. She follows me around the garden, appearing to fly. She has a series of hat pins in her hat. I snatch one of these hat pins and as she flies at me one more time, I make it grow in size. I then impale her directly through her heart so that she is fixed by the pin to a tree in the garden. I know that she is done for and resolve to do some protection “work” on waking,

Dream ends.

* Yesterday the plumber alerted us to some Asiatic Wasps close to the house.