Recreation is the core emotion that perceives, memorizes, automates, represents and manifests organization, renewal, beauty and symmetry.
Recreation feels attraction and curiosity for knowledge, innovation and discovery, patterns, rules, laws and balance, the organized aspect of reality, elegance and aesthetics.
Order is the characteristic through which the parts relate with each other to form a whole. The increase in the number of components and the generation of order between them causes the emergence of complexity, in both structures and functions. Real organization looks for the middle ground, the balance between minimum energy consumption and maximum efficiency in the functions.
Recreation is expressed through strategies and algorithms that solve problems or produce new symmetries, given that its character is computational and creative, being its nature synthetic and anabolic, since it shapes new orders from simpler elements. Along with sadness, it is the core emotion with the most functions.
Recreation is responsible for the entry of energy-information into the emotional core. As we know, the nucleohedron is the fundamental system that reflects the essential properties and possibilities of organization, not only in the emotions, but in any other emerging system (dimension, attentional bubble, living being, inert object, component or group). Given that recreation is the emotion that expresses the symmetrical aspect, one of the possible symmetries is that of inside-outside or oneself-other. This is why recreation is the gateway to the nucleohedron, as one of its functions is to equalize what is outside with what is inside. Its partner, sadness, is the gateway out of the energy-information in any system, as it is the emotion that is responsible for separations.
The essential virtue of recreation is temperance, that which is manifested when there is no excess or lack in our actions, words, thoughts and feelings: the middle way.
Recreation is the child of love and the mother of joy. Conservation requires renewal, and this leads to continuity and growth.
Recreation and sadness are a couple. They balance and complement each other, forming the creative power, whose meta-function is intelligence.
The synergy between recreation and sadness is called complexity.
Recreation is controlled by motive force and, in turn, exerts control over fear. Contraction inhibits renewal and symmetry decreases entropy.
The emotional deviation of recreation is represented by compulsive schemes, which promote the acquisition or search for new resources or experiences that, instead of generating symmetry and balance, produce the opposite result.
Recreation, along with joy and love, is part of the pleasurable core.
When a new strategy is synthesized by recreation (a possibility of order is found), this produces a shift in phase that stimulates joy and, in turn, verifies the fluidity of the new program. Then, joy will pass the resulting information onto fear so that it will be able to detect blockages, risks or problems if these arise. Afterwards, fear will activate sadness so that it can assess the appropriateness of the strategy. If it decides that it is befitting, sadness will issue an order for the motive force to execute it. When this is over, love will stabilize, integrate and memorize the result. If the strategy is declared incorrect, sadness will be dismissed and it will be communicated to recreation along with the experience gained so that the trial-and-error cycle can begin anew. This is a very simplified explanation applied to an elemental nucleohedron. Even in this case, this does not function exactly in a linear way, but rather by means of information flows that move simultaneously and in an intertwined way between all the core emotions, following the rules of the generative cycle, the controlling cycle and the complementarity of couples. Just as any object is comprised of a large number of particles, atoms and molecules, in the same way, any system would generally be made up of numerous recursive nesting nucleohedrons with the energy-information circulating through them – thus consolidating both their structural parts and their functions and relationship with other systems.
In the human case, many of the strategies learned during childhood are imitations (not new creations), copies of those already possessed by adults. In this case, although recreation participates in the acquisition of learning, it does not actually produce a synthesis of a new learning experience but rather of a replica of one that already exists in the environment. We often label people with the intelligence to naturally develop new strategies, innovations and creativities as geniuses. In their own way, excellent imitators can also be considered geniuses, although this reflex function is more suited to sadness, as opposed to true creativity that comes mostly from recreation.
Recreation stimulates interest in life's true potential via curiosity and admiration and also through recognition and appreciation of the underlying beauty and balance of existence. The interest that comes from recreation is based on the attraction for the discovery of new orders and symmetries; unlike that which intensifies joy through motivation, which is the result of dynamism, of the possibility of expanding and continuing to flow. One must admire both the symmetries one needs and has not yet achieved and the levels of organization above oneself, regardless of whether it is necessary to incorporate these into the individual matrix or not. That is why recreation is the one that recognizes hierarchies, both in nature and in the human world. From this recognition emerges appreciation, which is conveyed also through virtues such as respect, honour and loyalty. Therefore, the recognition of leaders, masters and other powerful figures is a function of recreation, although, often in our world, this function is diverted towards the admiration of false idols: figures of artificially granted power, with forms apparent but empty of functions and hollow of symmetrical contents. On other occasions, an error of recreation means that the person is more admired than any of the skills, resources or competencies that they possess. Someone detestable may possess assets or aptitudes that are worthy of admiration. From a worldly standpoint, it is easy to feel attraction towards individuals who have what we ourselves lack. Sometimes we also feel connected to people with whom we share the same moral, cultural or any other type of values, but in this case what we feel is not attraction or admiration, but connection, which is a function of love and not of recreation. One of the purest feelings of attraction that can be felt, true devotion, depends on whether we are fortunate enough to cross paths with someone who is a true example of symmetry, a mandalic figure full of coherence and impeccability, and, if possible, who has transcended the egoic phase: a fully realized individual. Nonetheless, it seems that these beings are scarce (and elusive) in this humanity.
Charisma is not the same as wisdom. Attractiveness is not the same as beauty. Appearance is not the same as worth. Your reflection in the mirror is not the same as the being you are inside.
Recreation is enticing and leads to a never-ending wonder and fascination with life. It stimulates the need for further learning. Curiosity can lead to the search for new organizational schemes that have not yet been explored, which first take shape in the imagination, in the internal world, before being discovered or manifested in the external world. The need to transform potential symmetries into realized symmetries is the process that begins with recreation and ends with love. As I have already indicated in previous chapters, life attempts to convert energy into information, meaninglessness into meaning, experiences in knowledge, understanding and skills.
Unevolved recreation often corrupts the yearning for transformation (true thirst), turning it, instead, into a desire for salvation. Religions and spiritual movements have repeatedly used this archetype to promote and preserve their own status. Salvation is presented as an ideal, perfect state, a static, motionless nirvana. Work is defined as energy in action, so salvation would be the state in which one would not have to work, strive or be in movement anymore. On the other hand, however, symmetry needs work, otherwise entropy will destroy it. Therefore, salvation, in reality, would be a state of maximum entropy, of absolute homogeneity without differentiation, that is, of non-existence. Therefore, the search for it is a perversion of recreation, since what it must seek is the increase of symmetry, which is the singularity, the beauty observable by the observer, even if it is in exchange for having to exert oneself.
As I have said, it is necessary to feel curiosity and admiration for the symmetries that one does not have and that are needed for one's own development. On the other hand, one must love what one already has and needs to preserve in order to move forward.
It is also possible, and not necessarily insane, to recreate in moderation in external beauties or symmetries from a purely aesthetic and impractical point of view. Nevertheless, the true aesthetic is what promotes the creation of new structures capable of supporting advanced functions with ease and elegance, consuming the minimum amount of energy possible. Every activity-generating process is a function and every function demands structures. Symmetry is the optimization and synergy between structures and functions in any system. Structures have shapes, and recreation is able to recognize the beauty in them. Nowadays, however, the need for beautiful forms has been hyperactivated, and modern aesthetics aims to create attractive forms, although, in many cases, without symmetrical functions. When this happens, beauty is contaminated with falsehood, since its function is to guide the perceiver towards deception and confusion, in order to profit from it.
Recreation is also responsible for learning through play. The offspring of the most evolved mammals play. Recreational play is enjoyable and aims at learning the rules and acquiring new strategies. When a game is simply repetitive or imitative it is no longer recreational and is therefore controlled by sadness, so it becomes an effort and no longer serves as a means of learning, but rather of perfecting what has been learned.
The evolution of the core emotions of sadness and recreation in us made possible the appearance of the sixth human sense, verbal language, the aim of which is the organization of knowledge through experiencing the dialectical dimension of existence. Conversely, language also propelled the complexity and development of recreation and the rest of our emotions.
Human beings use their creativity to transform nature through their inventions and to reflect their beauty through art. In reality, however, creative processes do not exist, they are all recreational, since any known manifested order previously existed as a potential order on the abstract level.
Human laws are intended to be recreations of natural laws, in the hope of generating and maintaining justice and social order.
Recreation is also responsible for the feeling of attraction towards one’s partner, the desire for what is complementary, for the other, that which one is not and does not have. It is also the precursor of joy in sexuality, which stimulates the mechanism for the continuity of the species. However, recreation is only attracted to desire and enjoyment. It's a challenge for a couple to keep recreation active in the long run. This is not possible in a complete way, since recreation perceives newness and feels a special desire for what one does not have. In fact, falling in love is a feeling that appears because of the novelty, and therefore has nothing to do with love, but with recreation. This is why, after a time you can no longer feel what you felt at the beginning of a relationship, because the newness only lasts a little while. However, love, that deep and stable connection to what you already have, must be easily developed and strengthened over time (otherwise, the relationship is toxic). However, a couple of warriors of the consciousness will build up their recreation by taking care both of their sexuality and of their individual and common evolution, so that, through the path they travel together, they will achieve a better symmetry than they would attain separately; this is not dependence, but synergy. The couple is one of the most accessible evolutionary pathways for human beings.
Well-adjusted recreation makes us feel proud in the face of the conquest of new symmetries, be they our own or those of others. When it becomes unbalanced it turns us into egomaniacs: admirers of the perverse or compulsive slaves of desire. One's own symmetries that are no longer new must be primarily loved (self-esteem), rather than admired, otherwise vanity and a sense of personal importance are stimulated.
In the egoic stage, the desire for what one does not have or does not want to have generates cravings. We spend an enormous amount of energy wishing we had something and wanting to get rid of something. Cravings are the sixth source of suffering. They are the result of the distorted vision of the egoic personality, which makes us repeatedly focus on the idea that we don't have enough. The consumer society is built on these desires. From the point of view of the everyday world, it is obvious that we move in a state of permanent need. Lack, wear and tear and the mere fact of existing, take a great toll on beings. So, from a horizontal point of view it is true, we can lose and win, we can have or not have. However, cravings appear when the being that we are is identified with the reflection that the mind creates, and they are nourished through a life dedicated, on the one hand, to fleeing from the shadows, and on the other, to pursuing the shimmering lights of the world (or the other way around). The being is convinced that it is merely an ego with a name written on an identity document. It does so out of ignorance, which is the seventh source of suffering and the guiding thread of the other six. We cannot avoid it, not in this world; we must all go through the egoic phase. Yet a warrior of conscience knows this and so cultivates impeccability (the sum and synergy of all the essential virtues) when it comes to acting in the world and dealing with suffering in all its forms: the illusion of happiness, fear of death, lack and worry, frustration, pain and exhaustion, attachment, lack of love and loneliness, desire and craving.
We can reclaim our true identity. From the vertical point of view, we are pure consciousness, a luminous cocoon, a cluster of emotions with everything necessary for the journey of life, a unique experience. So, it is important, as we fight our battles, to remember what we are, incessantly, over and over again, time and again…
If we succeed in making recreation work in a symmetrical way, it will constantly produce attraction, full of temperance, to the cognitive units that generate order and symmetry – and to the Spirit itself. It will recognize the true essence of the beauty and wonder that underlies the journey of life, and thus lead us, out of temperance, to the feeling of continuity and expansion, increasing interest and motivation, expressing the joy of living and then restarting a new cycle within the myriad phases that our existence will have.
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Recreation by Chema Sanz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.