S02/E28: "Chief Feature Recognition" - The Organising Principle

The Cornerstone False personality is the assembled structure of acquired characteristics, habitual reactions, protective identities and crystallized weaknesses that develops across the first decades of life and gradually becomes what a person takes themselves to be.

It consists of many parts, unevenly weighted.

One factor, formed during the preparatory years through the repeated influence of education and environment, crystallizes more deeply than the others.

It grows stronger.

It develops the habit of taking the initiative in every situation that touches it.

It colonizes the function of I itself.

This factor is the cornerstone.

Everything else in the false personality structure is built around it, derived from it or in the service of protecting it.

Other crystallized weaknesses exist and can be addressed one by one.

The cornerstone is different in kind because it determines the character of the whole arrangement.

it inhabits every part of the inner life colouring all parts simultaneously.

The mechanism is straightforward.

The chief feature gives its colour to thought, feeling and movement alike.

Its colouring can appear across all three giving apparently unrelated manifestations a recognisable inner flavour.

A person whose cornerstone is vanity doesn't only behave vainly in obvious situations.

Vanity processes situations broadly.

Success is seen through it.

Failure is seen through it.

Intimacy is seen through it.

The content of what's seen varies.

The coloration of how it's seen remains the same.

This is the first thing to understand about the chief feature.

It operates as the structure that produces the colouring.

A filter colouring the content itself.

The same force that crystallised it was often presented as a positive attribute during formation.