describe reason in terms you are most likely to put to use down the road."
She looked at me poignantly. "This is not a definitive medical analysis, or
psychological gospel of any discipline. Like all of my definitions and
conceptual descriptions, it specifically addresses your temperament and
interpretational bias. It also may be relatively meaningless, because it‘s
not what you want to know."
I cocked my head.
"You are unable to imagine processing your daily circumstances
through the logic of a Stalker, as if your experience minutes ago was a
reasonable oversight, and you think that hammering at what you think you
know will lead you to understanding something that lies o utside of
reason." She exhaled deeply.
"So answering won‘t help?"
"I don‘t know; you‘re interpretations are unique."
"Give it a shot," I also said tonelessly.
"Reason," Bonnie said academically, "is typically thought to be the
capacity to comprehend events in a rational way. However, rationality is
dependent upon how we view our experiences within familiar
environments and conditions, and we initially have no choice but to adopt
certain values until experiences customize our view."
She paused for me to bring to bear our previous lessons.
I grunted, meaning that I had done this.
She carried on: "The process of customization is multi- layered: All
physical manifestations are translations of energy, and our energy is a
translation of our entire energetic selves, or soul. When we are born, our
physical translation begins interpreting other physical translations of
energy, as our unique perceptions experience it."
"Still with you," I said to move her on.
"Our first assumptions about physical reality, such as distance, heat,
cold, up and down, are interpretations of psychological and energetic
conditions that exist in our natural state. This is to say that these root
assumptions are literally forced upon our form, causing us to perceive
physical reality in the ways that we do. At the same time, our personal
interactions with these assumptions conform us to perceive a specific
version of reality, in a particular way, such as the ways of a culture that
came before us. Taken together, these influences form a consensus about
not just what we see, but all of our perceptions in and to the world at large.
Stalkers call this level of perception our inventory, and it includes all of
the average person‘s experiences. For practical purposes, if you can
perceive it or conceive of it, it belongs to your inventory." She paused
again.
