Dialogue Part 9: Depicting Culture With Colloquialisms by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Dialogue Part 9
 Depicting Culture With Colloquialisms
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is a list of previous posts in the Dialogue series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/10/dialogue-parts-1-4-listed.html
That post has been updated to include the previous 8 parts of Dialogue.

And here is Part 3 of the Depicting series with links to previous parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/09/depiction-part-3-internal-conflict-by.html

You should also keep in mind the Cliche
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/11/4-pentacles-almighty-cliche.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-11-correct.html

And Misnomers:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/dialogue-part-7-gigolo-and-lounge.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/02/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-6.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

Here we are building on points made in those prior posts.

Remember from earlier discussions of Dialogue that Dialogue is not "recorded speech."

You can't make your characters sound realistic by using real speech.  Yet without studying real speech with the ear of an outsider, you can't write realistic dialogue.  That makes dialogue very much an art form, ...

Here are more prior posts related to dialogue and art:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/writers-eye-finds-symmetry.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/theme-plot-integration-part-9-use-of-co.html

...but as in all arts, there are some easy rules to get you started.

Have you ever noticed how a politician using a teleprompter reading a speech delivers the words smoothly, without searching for expressions, or apparently self-editing as he talks?  This is the season rich in examples of speeches and "hot-mike" moments.  Go find some videos of speeches - doesn't matter for or against what agenda, just listen to the intonation and watch for stumbles.

Reading from a teleprompter is a sure giveaway that the speaker is not saying his/her own words (even if they write their own speeches!) and therefore raises the question of whether the speaker actually understands the meaning of the words written by an erudite speech-writer.  Also there's the question of whether, if understood, the words said aloud are actually the truth. 

Here is a recent non-fiction book by an eminent champion of consumer rights.  This book depicts (in non-fiction) a situation that would make a wondrous "conspiracy theory" to set on an Alien world sizzling with debate on whether to make First Contact with Earth, just to tap our resources. 

Note the book is about politicians saying one thing to voters, and another behind the scenes, their motives for doing that, and the counter-strike building against it.



Here is the blurb from Amazon:
------quote-------
Ralph Nader has fought for over fifty years on behalf of American citizens against the reckless influence of corporations and their government patrons on our society. Now he ramps up the fight and makes a persuasive case that Americans are not powerless. In Unstoppable, he explores the emerging political alignment of the Left and the Right against converging corporate-government tyranny.

Large segments from the progressive, conservative, and libertarian political camps find themselves aligned in opposition to the destruction of civil liberties, the economically draining corporate welfare state, the relentless perpetuation of America’s wars, sovereignty-shredding trade agreements, and the unpunished crimes of Wall Street against Main Street. Nader shows how Left-Right coalitions can prevail over the corporate state and crony capitalism.
---------end quote-------

Oddly, Glen Beck predicted (reading from a teleprompter) that the "Left" and the "Right" would form a coalition on common grounds.  Do you think Nader would ever appear on Beck's show?  Hmmmm. 

Dialogue in novels, done as printed text, generally does seem smooth, rehearsed just as if we all read from a teleprompter saying things we don't exactly mean for reasons of self-interest not so different from those depicted in Nader's newest book.

One of the main dialogue tools a writer can draw on to depict dialogue that is emotionally truthful, that is up-front and completely honest, is to depict speech-stumbles, adding in the uh and ummm and self-conscious chuckles or long hesitations as a word is carefully chosen. 

I used the silences while carefully choosing a word to depict the Alien From Outer Space in my Vampire Romance, Those of My Blood.


BTW "You know" is not usually added in written dialogue, even though in real speech you hear that (and the equivalent) a lot. 

Too much of that choppy dialogue and the page just does not scan correctly for a reader, so it's a tool to use sparingly.  I use it way too much, but my novels are emotion driven, relationship driven -- and often the characters are driven by a need to be perfectly honest and accurate.  (or they are very bad liars)

Now, why is it that stumbling and searching for a word does not seem "right" to readers when there is too much of it?  And how much is too much?

In real life, we really do exchange short utterances in smooth, flowing words.

How can that be? 

Simple.

In real life dialogue, most of our utterances are well-rehearsed! 

There is such a thing as routine speech.

There are words and phrases we repeat endlessly (which makes for dull reading).  We speak to each other in colloquialisms, set phrases and on-message talking points. 

Consider your routine exchanges with check-out clerks, appointment secretaries, and the service people who come to your house to fix an appliance, fix the plumbing, whatever.  Foreign Language Guidebooks are replete with this kind of routine-speech all indexed.  There are phrases you memorize and just roll off the tip of your tongue, brain barely engaged.  We are used to communicating that way. 

That's why politicians who have rehearsed talking points can fool us so easily -- they sound like they are just talking the same way we talk.

So when you write dialogue, remember to use a "smooth" style (without um and ah and you-know) when the exchange is depicting routine civil discourse, polite conversation, Guidebook Conversation. 

But when your character goes off-script, loses his mental teleprompter, he/she can get tongue-tied and stumble -- or try to choose words carefully.  This is the typical teenager having the first adult conversation with a potential sex partner.

Our everyday routine speech is Setting Dependent and Relationship Dependent and Situation Dependent.

And so our written dialogue can be used to depict Setting, Relationship and Situation -- as well as Culture, social and business expectations.

Since we have these speech-patterns in real life that can be used only in certain Settings, Relationships, Situations, etc. when we read stories with dialogue, we automatically decode the dialogue to infer what Setting, Relationship or Situation lies behind the characters.

Thus a writer has a tool to convey loads of information about a Culture that the character who is speaking would not consciously know about himself.  This tool works wonderfully well for depicting Alien Cultures. 

To make a story "accessible" to a modern Earth audience, you lead the reader to decode the dialogue into data about the culture just as they would if overhearing a conversation in an elevator.

What the reader figures out for him/herself about the culture of the Aliens will make the Aliens seem real, make their characters seem like old friends.  What you TELL the reader about the Aliens will go in one eye and out the other -- with a shrug and a "who cares?"

So give your reader Dialogue that DEPICTS the Alien Culture without explaining that Culture to them in so many words. 

Here's the book that I keep referring you to for a lesson in where, inside your head, you keep your Culture.



Humans are largely unaware that they have a Culture (or two) driving their behavior.  Most don't even know what Culture is, where it comes from, or what it can accomplish in a cohesive society.  We've discussed this in previous posts.  Your reader's ignorance is your tool for convincing them your Alien Romance is real.  But that will only work if you can identify your own cultural drivers.

Here let's take a stripped down, bare bones example of dialogue that depicts a culture. 

Called into the boss's office on Monday morning, an IT manager gently closes the door behind him.

The boss sits at his desk making notes on his Project Management calendar.

---------SAMPLE DIALOGUE--------

"Hi, Jim!" the Boss said.

"Good Morning.  You said to be here 10:00 AM?"

"Yes, you're only a little late.  Tell me, how is the Network Upgrade project going?"

"Those lost data files are still lost, but the Network is now running."

"Great!  That's a good start.  So when will you have the missing data recovered?"

"I've had a crew on it over the whole weekend.  We've done all we can, but the data is just gone."

"You've done all you can?  You personally?  And the data is gone forever?"

"Yes, I've been on it with them-"

"And you've done everything possible?" 

"Definitely, everything possible." 

"That's your excuse? You've done all you can and everything possible?  All of you?"

"Well, yes, we'd never give you less than our best."

"I see.  Then, I've done all I can and everything possible, too, and there's just no way to recover from this - so you and your whole crew are fired, effective at Noon today." 

The boss hits SEND on his keyboard.  "Pick up your severance pay on the way out."

------------END SAMPLE DIALOGUE----------

In our everyday reality, this IT professional and his team would NOT be fired for "doing all they can" and having the results be less than acceptable.

In our current culture, once you have maxed out your abilities (so we are taught in school these days) you are thereupon excused from all further effort. 

Under no circumstances may you exceed your current limitations lest you "show up" some other student or become an Elite, or get the idea you are "superior" because you accomplished something nobody else could.

In fact, if you do dare to step over a limit, like say "Common Core" standards, and do more than is required, you get slapped down hard.  You are lectured that you must not read ahead in the textbook, you must not "color outside the lines" and may not use sources you find in libraries or online to contradict what it says in the textbook.

The reason, of course, is the way Teachers now do not do their Degree work in what they teach, but in "Education" -- so in reality, the teacher doesn't know enough about the subject to write the textbook, but is considered qualified to teach that textbook's content. 

So if a student brings in facts that dispute the book, the teacher will be made to look bad in front of the other students for the lack of a coherent answer.  A Common Core Teacher is not allowed to teach the class that the textbook is wrong, even if it is and the Teacher knows that.   

Heated argument and debate with Teachers over errors in textbooks was once encouraged in schools, but that leads to heated argument and debate with Supervisors at work (and real strife in Situations such as Nader postulates in his book).  If Promotion has not been on merit alone, the Supervisor then looks bad. 

EXERCISE:
A) Do a snatch of Dialogue between such an overwhelmed Teacher and a know-it-all Student on the pattern of what I showed you above.  Show the cultural paradigm just by stripped bare lines of dialogue, no description, no he-said/she-said, no narrative, no business for actors to convey emotion.  Just dialogue.  Try it. 

B) Now do a similar exchange between the Parent of a child so accused of insubordination and the overwhelmed Teacher.

C) Do an exchange between the Teacher and the Principal, like the IT Head and the Boss above.

D) Do all three snatches described in A, B, and C, but set on an Alien Planet amidst an Alien culture. (yes, you may launch a Romance between the Teacher and the Parent of the Student.)  Do it all with Dialogue alone.  This is a standard text-book exercise in Professional Radio Writing for Drama shows and you find it in Write For Television books, too.

Depicting such a situation, a writer can convey all manner of abstract facts about the Ancient History of the Civilization (human or non) of the story without a word of narrative or exposition.

The result of today's massive shift in school culture is adults who have become a different kind of reader. 

That gives rise to a generation-gap you, the writer, must straddle.  You must entertain the reader who accepts the idea that one merely has to do all one can, or everything possible, and then can give up without incurring penalty or blame.  With the same words, you must entertain the reader who just assumes that any limitation the characters encounter is there to be transcended, overcome, destroyed, blasted, upset, dissolved, or something else.

Here is the latest in a long series by Simon R. Green that depicts the team of a warrior and a witch combining talents to achieve the Impossible -- several times a novel.  It is about the Drood family, and is part of the Tales of The Nightside but set in our regular world where secret battles go on every day. (shades of Ralph Nader!)



Green does 5-star worthy novels, but the latest few could use a lot of blue-pencil editing to remove dialogue loops.  Green's style, however, is strongly evocative of Gini Koch's ALIEN series, which also presents us with an indomitable pair who will invent, create, out-think, or out-maneuver any threat. When "all I can" isn't enough, they violate rules, break laws, smash barriers, and acquire a much larger inventory of things they can do.  These characters live without limits set by others -- yet have an admirable set of limits they construct within themselves.  They do not abuse power simply because they can. 

Remember, in current culture, giving up quietly leads to promotion, or "failing upward" or what used to be called being "bumped upstairs."   

Science Fiction was founded by people raised to be the sort who, when presented with a problem that will not yield to "all one can" simply does something one CANnot -- one exceeds one's personal, internal limitations. 

Likewise, once "all possible" solutions are exhausted, one INVENTS a new solution (or three).  Green and Koch give us current novels depicting that sort of character. 

The lack of that unlimited attitude was a massive flaw in the TV Series Beauty And The Beast -- not the current one, but the older one about a culture in the tunnels under New York where an Alien from Outer Space was welcomed, but fell in love with a woman from Above.



The TV writers set up a situation which could have been changed by doing something that CANnot be done, and set as the premise for the show that the Situation could not be changed. 

The show was about living with inevitable heartbreak - and the short-lived series spawned more fanfic than you can imagine.  Fans hammered at adding things and inventing things to resolve this Situation where two lovers could not inhabit "the same world."  Every permutation and combination of solutions to bring the two into the same world for an HEA (or to kill off one) was written.  A lot of it is now online, but most was done only on paper.

So if the producers wanted to engage Science Fiction fans, they hit on the right combination -- just tell the fans "It is impossible" and watch the fans flood the world with solutions that are in fact possible -- or change the world to fix the Situation.

Science Fiction was founded by folks with the mindset of non-conformists, defying rules and limits, and creating inventions on the fly to solve problems as they came up.  That's what fanfic is, and where it came from -- the intrinsic thrust toward breaking barriers, doing the impossible, changing the very nature of Reality so it accommodates Love better -- fans not allowing Hollywood to prevent them from having their stories.  Ralph Nader would be well advised to study fandom for a model of how to fight the Big Corporations conjoined to Washington.  When Star Trek was cancelled (the first and second times) fandom prevailed over big business and got the animated Series, the films, and then more TV Series, and now more films.

No Science Fiction Hero ever yielded to an opponent after doing just "all he can" or "all possible." 

Literary scholars insist that audiences want to "identify with" fictional characters.  To do that, the audience requires that the characters have something in common with the audience.  For Science Fiction, that common-characteristic is the refusal to stop at "all I can" and to do what it takes to solve the problem or change the Situation. 

In the 1970's, concurrent with Star Trek, we had the Women's Movement.  Today we have female Hero characters with that indomitable attitude in both Romance and Science Fiction.

"Bosses" in science fiction stories expected and required their hirelings to do things that the hireling could not do (at the outset of the story) -- and to defy the Possible and accomplish the previously Impossible thus establishing new standards for what could be done, and re-defining the nature of Reality.

Doing the Impossible just takes a little longer, and might include cost-overruns.

Our current youngest readership does not expect such performance from the Hero of the story, and would not despise someone who failed to accomplish something beyond their ability. 

How can you blame someone for not-doing what they can't do? 

Robert A. Heinlein had a saying to the effect that failing is a capital offense -- you fail; you die.

Thus the snatch of dialogue above delivers a SURPRISE ENDING that depicts a culture alien to many modern readers. 

EXERCISE:
Add a few sentences to that dialogue snatch to indicate how shocked the employee was to be fired (if he was) and what the Boss did next about the unsolved problem of the lost data.

Which one is the Hero (or which is more Heroic) would be depicted by what each chose to do next. 

If the IT professional above were female and the boss male (or vice versa) you could end up with a really hot Romance.  After all, firing a woman who can't do the impossible for failing to do the impossible is going to get the company sued, no?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

4 Pentacles - The Almighty Cliche

--------------
Prepending a note about Linnea's post of Monday November 5th, 2007:

Let's consider HOW to achieve the effect Linnea is urging new writers to strive for. There is a mechanism for it and another motivation to master that mechanism besides winning contests.

Linnea pointed out something I've noticed in every workshop I've taught that was open to beginners.

The use of language.

Believe me, she's not shilling for this column!

I really had no idea she'd post that right before I posted this 4 of Pentacles (written 2 weeks ago, and she didn't see it!) and focused this essay around the Cliche, and an in-depth discussion of the way a living language is wildly abused by spin-doctors (labeling progressive behavior as conservative; creating odious associations with words that actually are uplifting in their original meaning, i.e. jerking you around.)

Since the universe was Created with words, as noted in the series on the Suit of Swords, we must guard our usage of words carefully. Even words spoken without forethought have an effect on the universe as a whole, no matter how insignificant you may think you are.

Words written and read by others have a magnified effect. Our usage of language is one of our tools for soul growth. Abuse can lead to disaster because words are power. Remember this when reading my post later on the 6 of Pentacles.

Spin doctors re-label and twist the meanings of words using SEMANTIC LOADING. By changing the semantic loading, they can change your behavior. So can any fiction writer.

All new writers should google up "semantic loading." And read up on "General Semantics" -- it is an objective method of studying (an entire science) how words create emotional effects.

It is the science behind advertising -- and political campaign "talking points." How you say a thing determines how most (not you and me, because we're writers, but MOST) people will react emotionally to words and thus subsequently behave.

Yes, it's the science of how to jerk people around.

It's also the science behind storytelling in all forms, acting -- everything. It's how to cast an illusion.

There's another study which can replace a lot of the adjectives and adverbs that spoil a narrative -- BODY LANGUAGE. Learn that science.

In acting, that's called "business" -- such as when a scriptwriter specifies that the actor should twitch her nose in order to activate a magic spell. Or the "tell" as gamblers call it -- when a character is lying, he pulls his earlobe every time.

OK, those examples are way too broad. You have to be original and subtle when using these techniques -- semantic loading and business. There are many more techniques that can be learned handily by studying some basic screenwriting books.

Characters, like people, have unconscious habits that bespeak their emotional pitch. Use those habitual actions to SHOW the reader what the character feels (that the character may not even be aware of) without TELLING the reader with florid adjectives and overused unusual verbs.

To implement these techniques in your writing, you must ask yourself what you really meant by using a particular word, then try replacing that word in various ways. Eventually, the choice of word becomes second nature -- habitual (Suit of Swords), but to start out, there's a tried and true way to teach yourself to do this.

There are perhaps 10 or more language-control techniques (some involving sentence syntax) that a writer can use to paint an emotional picture behind the characters, so dialogue can carry the impact without explanations of what each person is thinking (creating the "heads" problem Linnea mentioned.)

Exactly how do you create a manuscript using these word-control techniques after you've gone and looked them up on the web?

You leverage the fact that you're using a computer not pen and ink. You don't have to make it read well in first draft, condemning yourself to months of copy-typing the manuscript every time you edit.

You can lay down each layer of the story, going over the text again and again, adding more and more color each time - deleting bits, tightening, wordsmithing, and actually spend less time producing final copy than ever was possible in prior generations.

So, FIRST you write the story in very plain English, no decoration, no sensory context, no depth of emotion. Plot-plot-plot.

Once it's laid out and you can see how long it has to be, you spot the points where your (ahem) climaxes must be placed. Then you go over the whole manuscript working the emotional tension up to those climax points subtly using those techniques -- and then use word-management techniques, syntax and vocabulary to REDUCE the tension dramatically at the climax points.

You add and trim back wordage so each emotional beat falls on the correct printed page.

Your finished product should have a succession of emotional peaks on precise pages (depending on your market), but in every case the peaks should march in a straight line UP to the final climax at the end when you pull out all the language stops and reach for the sky.

Stagecraft principle is "Less is more."

This diagram of marching climaxes managed by changing language-techniques holds across all genres, even Literature and especially Best Sellers, and in screenwriting. If you can discover the exact pacing of climax points most admired by your particular market, you will be a best seller within that market.

This part of the writing craft really is objective, cut and dried, pure science, and anyone who can craft an English sentence can learn to do this.

What can't be taught is the art of what story to tell in order to say what important thing about Life, The Universe, and Everything.

OK, now to today's work - the 4 of Pentacles and the use of language.

--------------------

As noted previously, this is a chapter in a book about the Tarot aimed at Intermediate students of Tarot, not beginners or advanced students. It is particularly aimed at writers looking to learn World Building and Alien Character building.

It should eventually be titled: The Biblical Tarot: The Not So Minor Arcana by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, but who knows? It has no publisher yet.
---------------

And Remember: The meaning of a Tarot Minor Arcana resides in the placement on the Tree of Life (i.e. the number on the card) integrated with the "World" or Suit of the card.

For the Tree of Life and the Jacob's Ladder diagrams see:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~maggyw/treeladder.html

I don't really go with the way this page explains the Tree, but it is worth thinking about. There are many other ways. For now, ponder the diagrams on this page or Google up some others.

I have been posting here since August 14th, every Tuesday, the 10 minor Arcana of the suit of Swords. The Ace of Pentacles was posted Oct 23, 2007. By accident, the 3 of Pentacles was posted on MONDAY NOV 5, 2007. Look for posts in this series on Tuesdays.

--------------
ASIDE: Rowena posted on Sunday Nov 4th about "Uncivilized Behavior" -- well, here in 4 Pentacles we'll think a bit about what civilization is and what it requires of us. We aren't collaborating on these posts -- truly we're not.
---------------

4 Pentacles

We're now discussing the second circle up from the bottom of the right hand column of Jacob's Ladder. It does not overlay a Swords card.

Words get redefined continuously -- that's the nature of a "living" language, and it's a good thing. But it sometimes makes it hard to communicate across generations.

The slippery word to grapple with under 4 Pentacles is probably "conservative."

Politics and religion have ladled layers of non-meaning on top of the core concept there. It may take some thinking to strip away the negative semantic loading (the emotional content of the word) and begin thinking within the 4 Pentacles domain of definition.

Remember the 4's are all associated with the astrological meaning of the planet Jupiter which rules Sagittarius (ever so much about truth and honesty, painful blurt-it-out honesty).

Jupiter is about growth, expansion, reaching out to include (Saturn being about exclusion), and thus the Law (or legal courts system) and social order and organization.

Jupiter is about how things go your way when you "go with the flow" -- and thus about "luck," which is the result of being in the right place at the right time.

So what's Luck to do with "conservative?"

Ah, well it's hard to grow if everything you add gets thrown away before you add the next thing.

"Conservative" means to conserve, preserve, or keep. It doesn't mean to not-change. It means to BUILD, GROW, systematically improve toward a goal.

Even the dictionary says "conservative" means opposed to change -- but it doesn't. It can't.

You can't preserve something if you try to freeze it in place and refuse change.

Change is life -- life is change! Growth is an essential life process.

"Conservative" doesn't mean death -- it means systematic, targeted, purposive, true-to-the-origin growth.

But, as you know that's not what the modern English language uses it for.

Consider that you can't progress without conserving.

If you have a savings account and put money in to increase your savings -- what happens if you take out as much as you put in? Or more? You have to keep what you've got in order to grow your savings.

Pentacles are about material reality, the concrete level of existence.

4's are about the long, quiet, growth period between commitment and challenge. (see 4 Swords).

The 4 of Pentacles is about the long, quiet accumulation of material resources.

Saving for the vacation of a lifetime is 4 Pentacles. Taking the vacation might be 6 Pentacles.

5 Pentacles would be the part of the saving process where you make excuses to take out of your savings account for other things, or it might be where other people tell you what a miser you are and you believe they are justified in vilifying and rejecting you.

But having a savings goal isn't being a miser.

4 Pentacles is about building infrastructure. 4 Pentacles is investment of capital in growth.

What is capital?

Capital is not money, but it is perfectly represented by Pentacles.

Capital is accumulated (conserved) profit from prior operations.

It doesn't have to be material profit.

For example, your time (time is a Pentacles manifestation) can be capital.

You rush through your work day, gobble dinner, sit down at the computer and invest your saved capital of time by installing and configuring a new program. Your joy knows no bounds. You're now out of time, and have to go to bed to get up and save more time tomorrow, but for the moment you have invested your capital in future joy with this new program you haven't used yet.

Your computer should conserve that install-configure nicely until you get back to enjoy it.

What if it doesn't? What if someone just erases the program leaving your operating system messed up and crashing?

What if that person erased your time investment because they wanted to upgrade your operating system for you and they're mad at you for being so conservative you bull-headedly resist change?

When the expensive, irreplaceable accumulated infrastructure of your life is attacked, you will resist "change" too won't you?

The applicable cliche is, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." Don't discard a huge investment in order to get rid of the dross.

Now take another scenario. Suppose you installed the program, configured it, and then got to use it until it was obsolete (all too soon these days) and now you want to do things that this old program can't do?

Now you will uninstall it, and install and configure the upgrade. Maybe even upgrade your operating system, or even get a new computer.

You made an investment of capital (time) in your program, reaped more from it than you invested by using the program until it became obsolete, and now you are ready to invest more capital.

Conserving isn't anti-change. It is the fastest and most powerful change there is.

Take a longer, more impersonal perspective.

Knowledge (not ideas which is Wands, or feelings which is Cups, or actions which is Swords) knowledge is a manifestation of Pentacles. Knowledge is a concrete thing created from ideas, dedication, and actions.

Knowledge can be accumulated, and in fact it is said we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Civilization isn't just the business of living together in cities rather than following herds as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Civilization is vertically integrated through time.

Civilization means conserving all the knowledge so hard-won in the past by our ancestors, adding to that database, always investing and investing more and more of our intellectual capital for future generations. And so we grow.

High School students often feel that being dragged through old experiments that prove that something is true -- but today we know it's not true -- is a futile waste of time. But it's not. By walking through, hands-on, the experiments that led to new knowledge, subsequently proved false, we come to understand that today's truth is tomorrow's falsehood. What we have is theory which can be overturned at any time by new facts. And we learn how to explore the world to add to human knowledge.

Some people call the defenders of an overturned theory "conservative" -- but they're not "conservative" if the old theory really has been overturned.

The true conservative will grab for the new theory with both hands because it represents growth, just as the satisfied computer user above would gladly install the upgrade to his wonderful program once he's garnered his profit.

So we pass down our accumulated knowledge (our intellectual capital) from generation to generation, and that is the hallmark of civilization and the essence of 4 Pentacles.

We also pass down accumulated wisdom, techniques for managing human emotion, methods of living productive lives, procedures for developing sound relationships.

As science is still a work-in-progress, so is our wisdom. In fact, science used to be "Natural Philosophy" and Jupiter is Philosophy (ruler of the natural 9th House). All 4 of the 4's are represented by Jupiter.

As in both science and wisdom, what we have accumulated should not be discarded when something new is added, or you will have only the new tidbit and have to start the infrastructure build over from scratch, perpetually reinventing the wheel.

The body of wisdom can be enlarged (Jupiter - 4) to include the new, even when the new contradicts the old. We hold those two contradictory truths until a new one comes along to resolve them. If we forget the old untruth, then someone will ask if it's actually true and repeat the entire experimental research procedure, wasting capital that could be invested in progress.

So how do we pass down wisdom?

For the last thirty years or more, book editors and Hollywood film makers have forbidden the "cliche" from stories of all kinds.

As a result, few young people have even heard some of them.

Why are they cliches? Because they got repeated until people couldn't stand the sound of them any more. (me, too)

Why did they get repeated so often?

Because they are hard won, expensive lessons encapsulated for easy transmission. Learning the cliches is as unpleasant as learning the original lesson someone suffered through because they will be recited at you every time you make that old mistake. Repetition is the only way humans learn this kind of thing. So cliches are a treasure trove we have discarded.

That inventory of cliches is Wisdom Capital deleted from our astral plane hard drive.

Repeated cliches feel just as futile as the High School science lesson about a lab experiment that proves something is true -- when we know it's false.

In fact, cliches do sound false to those who have not learned the lesson by living through it.

A stitch in time saves nine.

But we don't mend things anymore. We throw them away and get new.

Think again. That cliche isn't about sewing or mending. It's about doing what you don't want to do NOW before your neglect causes you to have to do even more of what you don't want to do later.

That is, it's about procrastination -- which unfortunately will never be vanquished from human nature.

Featured on recent commercials: The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. (Be the hammer!)

That's not about nails or hammers. It's about the wisdom of conformity -- or seeming to conform -- or imposing conformity upon reluctant others. It's about individuality, the foundation of the philosophy of the U. S. A. pioneers. Note this one surfaces as a commercial when China is rising to ascendancy.

There are thousands of these wisdoms that have been banned from our media, with a few daring exceptions, and some uses in comedy.

Is it any wonder that younger people don't have the mastery of these techniques of life at the same age that their grandparents mastered them?

The capital of thousands of years of experience has been discarded, leaving only the one new thing in hand, and abandoning all these young people to reinventing the wheel instead of adding to human accomplishments.

4 Pentacles also describes the situation where you are building a business relationship.

Building relationships is badly disrupted today as people change jobs fast. Today's postman is gone next week. The clerk at the hardware store is gone. The hairdresser you like is gone.

Your doctor is gone. Your dentist is gone. Your editor or her assistant is gone. Your agent is gone. You spend thousands of hours developing relationships with them so they understand who you are and what you need so that when an emergency strikes, you get efficient responses without friction.

All that time-capital is wasted when the person moves on to another job or location. Or when you move. Capital is destroyed and you must start again from scratch.

Small wonder people today are not enthusiastic about building long-term relationships. But of course it's irrational to resist change. Change is good -- the ultimate good, progress! Right?

So 4 Pentacles is about the long, quiet accumulation of knowledge, wisdom, money, relationships, time -- the accumulation of capital which you will (in the future) profit from investing.

To accumulate, you must hold on to what you have while you get more. The cardinal rule of Wall Street is "don't lose money," more than it is "always make money."

The Waite Rider deck depicts 4 Pentacles as a figure with two coins under his feet, one in hand, and one over his head. Old, well built, solid capital under his feet, plans for new innovations over head, and a project in progress in his hands.

We know, from the second oldest profession (cliche!), accounting, that your liabilities (debts) are part of what you have. So 4 Pentacles is also about debt. Just as in business, in the rest of your life, you must borrow in order to grow, and then pay back.

Growth and real change is a long, systematic process. Once begun it can't be changed until completion. You must use the borrowed capital to make a profit, then return the capital paying off your debt. Then you can move on to the next process. Not before then.

In writing a novel, you have to finish it and polish it before you take it to your critique group (5 Swords).

Cliche: Don't change horses in mid-stream.

It's not about horseback riding or the nature of rivers. It's about commitment (the 3's).

Commitment is about the situation your project is in after the 3's processes have been passed through. It's about how change costs capital and sometimes isn't worth it, even if you made a wrong choice in 3 Pentacles.

Karmicly, you took this lifetime to be you for a while, wearing this personality, working through these life-events in this order. You can't become someone else or change your life into someone else's. You want to, though, because you almost remember being so many other people.

If you blow away this life, all the work of those prior lives is destroyed and has to be done over from scratch. You can't make progress going round and round, doing things over.

So Conservatives are about progress and progressives are about destruction to the extent they throw the baby out with the bathwater. To make progress you must build on what has been accumulated. (The 5's & 6's are about judging when you should clear everything away and start over.)

4 of Pentacles is about the accumulation of capital and debt, but remember Pentacles is the end-result, the materialization, of all the ideas, emotions, and actions that have gone before. Without what went before, (WRITERS: "backstory" goes here) there would be no value in these Pentacles.

And 'before' is not just this one lifetime -- but all prior lifetimes.

So 4 Pentacles includes your karmic credit and your karmic debt. 4 Pentacles is what you have been building at the soul level for lifetimes.

Thus when you find yourself in a position where what you are doing is costing more than it seems to be worth, it's possible you are in a 4 Pentacles Reversed situation of paying off a karmic debt.

4 Pentacles Reversed can be about procrastination (that's how you get karmic debts, you know, by not paying them off in the lifetime where you accrue them), or it can be about a failure to conserve, a failure to build on what has gone before. You may be discarding the wisdom contained in cliches just because it annoys you.

Psychologically, the 4 Pentacles Reversed can be the subconscious defending against a minor pain by using a major crippling tactic, keeping you trapped doing the same thing over and over.

In Astrology, Jupiter represents a happy, expansive, lucky, magnanimous and generous force for growth. Jupiter is all about accepting and including, and growing thereby.

Jupiter builds civilization both by enlarging it in the current day, and integrating vertically through time, binding past to future through the present. (Jupiter rules the natural 9th House which includes "higher education.")

Jupiter can expend wantonly, but Jupiter is never a miser. So though the Waite Rider deck's picture makes some sense, the typical interpretation clashes with the ingredients in the meaning, 4's and End-Result Pentacles.

Take our writer who started selling her work in the Suit of Swords. Now she's FOUNDED A CAREER (despite the lousy packaging of her first novel) with her second work started in Ace of Pentacles, worked down through 2 and 3 of Pentacles and now in 4 Pentacles she has contracts for two years of work ahead, -- because (note that because) she is building on the success of her first book which was built on years of struggle to master the craft.

Here in 4 Pentacles, she will be writing sequels, and thus capitalizing on her prior work. She will be incorporating the hard-won lessons learned in 8 Swords and 9 Swords, and she will be avoiding mistakes that cost grief before.

She will be investing in a professional relationship with an editor and publishing company. She will take pride in delivering product on time and in good condition. (Yeah, she has to upgrade her word processor, *sigh*).

She will be conserving her prior work, translating it to the new word processor, building on it, expanding on it, capitalizing on it. Even unpublishable things she wrote that are penny-dreadful (cliche!) can be mined for kernels of wisdom.

If someone came along and told her to change her byline and abandon all her prior work because change is progress, she'd probably punch his lights out.

And then she'd stand accused of being against change. But she's not. She's changing as fast as she can write, faster maybe than the world can keep up with her.

How many characters have we written who defend civilization against the forces of destruction?

How many times a year do our characters save the world, the universe, humankind, alienkind, etc.?

The motive of those characters is the 4 of Pentacles -- what has been invested can not be retrieved until the profit has materialized.

Perhaps a better image for the 4 of Pentacles would be the hen sitting on a nest of four eggs.

The hen's not against change, is she?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/