The Waters of Development
A Neo-Lacanian allegory
Imagine a vast ocean where different kinds of people have adapted to live in different ways. Let me tell you about Maya, Kai, Sarah, Zoe, and Sage - each representing a different way of being in this world.
The Divers (Detached)
Maya lives entirely underwater, diving deeper than anyone else in their water world. Born there, she never learned to swim up to the surface, and eventually developed gills to breathe the water. While others see only a blue expanse below, Maya perceives an entire universe of minute variations during her dives. She can detect the smallest changes in water pressure, the finest gradients of temperature, the subtlest movements of deep-sea creatures that others never notice.
The surface world remains a mystery. She watches the swimmers' ceremonies and the floaters' protocols with a mixture of fascination and suspicion. Sometimes she feels a deep longing to understand their strange social dances, to join their interconnected world. But their unwritten rules feel arbitrary and overwhelming - why do the swimmers always spiral clockwise during full moons? Why must the floaters maintain exactly three meters of rope between boats?
Maya's world often turns murky as she dives deeper, and when it does, everything else simply ceases to exist for her. It's not that she forgets about the others - they literally disappear from her reality until she resurfaces or the waters clear again. But this same ability to completely filter out everything else allows her to make remarkable discoveries. While others are distracted by surface movements and social currents, Maya can spend hours examining a single coral formation, understanding its patterns in ways that even the flyers, with all their freedom of movement, never quite grasp.
Who she is seems to change with the currents. While studying a particular anemone, she becomes The Observer of Anemones, completely identified with this role, forgetting her previous identity as Mapper of Currents or Counter of Sand Grains. Each identity feels totally real and all-consuming until attention shifts and a new self emerges. Other divers might remind her of discoveries she made last week, but those feel like stories about someone else.
Sometimes, curiosity drives her toward the surface, but the brightness, the noise, and the strange feeling of air on her face quickly overwhelm her, sending her diving back to the familiar depths. Yet when she returns from these dives, she often brings with her unique insights about the foundations of their shared world - the deep currents that affect everyone above, the hidden structures that support the entire ecosystem, the patterns in the seabed that predict coming changes. Her ability to dive completely into one aspect of reality at a time makes her an unparalleled explorer of the depths.
The Swimmers (Psychotic)
Kai spends hours gazing at his reflection in the water's surface, fascinated by how the ripples fragment and reconstitute his image. He collects special shells and stones that enhance his swimming - not mere tools, but extensions of himself, each with its own story of how the water guided him to find it.
The water isn't just water to Kai - it's Mother, Teacher, the great cosmic force that flows through everything. "Can't you see?" he often calls to passing boats, "The way this wave curls is exactly like the spiral in a shell, which is exactly like the shape of the galaxy!" He traces patterns in the water with his fingers, reading them like ancient scripts. Other swimmers gather around him, adding their own interpretations, building elaborate systems of meaning from the way bubbles form and pop, how dolphins breach, how rain makes circles on the surface.
Their ceremonies are complex and beautiful. During full moons, they float in spiral formations, humming in harmony with what they swear is the water's own song. They dive deep to share their insights with the divers, rise up to warn the floaters of coming storms, their bodies acting as living bridges between depths and surface. They believe all water everywhere is connected, and through it, they are connected to everything - every raindrop, every tear, every distant ocean.
But there are darker times. Days when the water feels dead, when its messages go silent, when even breathing becomes an effort. Kai describes it as swimming through black ink - everything that once held meaning becomes mechanical, empty. Other swimmers look like hollow shells, their ceremonies feel like meaningless gestures. These periods can last days or weeks, and no amount of floater logic or flyer encouragement seems to help. Only by surrendering to the darkness, letting themselves sink into it completely, do they eventually rediscover the water's living presence.
Their relationship with the water is intense, almost childlike in its pure devotion. They speak to it constantly, thank it for its gifts, rage against it when it seems indifferent to their needs. Each swimmer believes they share a special bond with the water, that they alone truly understand its deepest messages. This can lead to passionate disagreements about interpretations of various signs and patterns, though these conflicts usually dissolve into new ceremonies celebrating the water's infinite mysteries.
Watch a group of swimmers at dawn: they move in perfect synchronization with the waves, their bodies tracing the endless circular patterns they see everywhere in nature. They point out how the ripples from their movement mirror the rings of tree trunks, the orbits of planets, the spirals of shells. Everything is connected, they insist, everything moves in cycles, everything flows according to the water's wisdom.
The intensity of their emotional experience can be overwhelming to others. One moment they're in ecstatic communion with the cosmic ocean, the next in depths of despair over humanitys's separation from nature's flow. They form passionate bonds with other swimmers, sharing profound insights about the water's consciousness, then fall into periods of isolated contemplation, communing with what they say is the spirit of rain.
Even in their most grounded moments, they maintain their unconditional faith in the water's living presence. Where divers study its properties, floaters measure its movements, and flyers play with its boundaries, swimmers seek constantly to merge with it, to become pure flow, pure pattern, pure meaning. Their gift to the water world is this dedication to maintaining living connection with its deepest mysteries, even if others sometimes find their interpretations dramatic or their certainties perplexing.
The Floaters (Neurotic)
Sarah lives in a carefully maintained boat, part of a floating society with strict rules and complex social protocols. From her elevated position, she has a unique view of the entire ecosystem - the mysterious movements of the divers below, the swimmers bobbing at the surface, and her fellow floaters in their various vessels. This comprehensive perspective has led her community to develop intricate theories about how everything works and detailed guidelines for proper behaviour in every situation.
She and her fellow floaters have developed an impressive system of ropes and anchors between their vessels, creating a stable network of connections. These physical links mirror their social bonds - complex, sometimes restrictive, but ultimately providing security and stability. Every morning, Sarah checks and double-checks these lines, anxious about any possibility of her boat breaking free or, worse, capsizing. This careful attention to maintenance and protocol has allowed the floaters to build the most technologically advanced society in their water world.
Sarah's boat appears perfectly maintained above the waterline, but beneath deck lies a more complex reality. Hidden compartments hold items she can't quite discard: a collection of shells from forbidden shallow-water expeditions, journals filled with dreams of diving deep, sketches of flight paths she secretly observes. These hidden treasures both thrill and shame her. Sometimes they seem to rise of their own accord, like her secret logbook mysteriously appearing on her desk, or a shell rolling out during boat inspection, leading to hours of anxious reorganizing.
Her relationship with the water is profound but conflicted. Unlike the swimmers who embrace it completely, Sarah both yearns for and fears its depths. She studies its movements obsessively, measuring tides, tracking currents, creating endless charts and tables. Yet this very systematization helps her maintain distance from the raw power that both attracts and terrifies her. "The water demands proper respect," she'll say firmly, though sometimes at night, when no one's watching, she'll trail her fingers in the waves and imagine what it would feel like to just... let go.
The floaters have developed intricate social hierarchies based on how well each boat maintains its position relative to the water. "Better" boats stay perfectly level, never dipping too low or rising too high on the waves. Sarah constantly adjusts her ballast, trims her sails, checks her anchor lines - not just for practical stability, but as proof she's a "good boat." She can't shake the feeling that the water itself judges these efforts, that somehow every splash against her hull is a comment on her worthiness.
Their ceremonial practices are fascinating: elaborate boat-cleaning rituals that must be performed in exact sequences, complex protocols for waste disposal that go far beyond practical necessity, detailed rules about which parts of the boat can touch water under which circumstances. Breaking these rules requires equally elaborate ceremonies of correction - specific knots that must be untied and retied, locks that must be unlocked and relocked, all while reciting proper nautical phrases.
At times the weight of mortality becomes overwhelming. Sarah will spend hours reinforcing her hull, checking for leaks, updating emergency procedures. "You can never be too prepared," she'll say, but her fellow floaters recognize the familiar anxiety in her voice. They all share the same deep fear - not just of sinking, but of being reclaimed by the water they work so hard to stay above. This drives their meticulous record-keeping, their obsession with preserving everything in waterproof containers, as if proper documentation could somehow guarantee continuation.
The floaters' social events are carefully orchestrated performances where everyone plays their proper role. Yet these same gatherings often end in whispered exchanges of forbidden knowledge: secret swimming techniques, hidden coves where rules are relaxed, rumours of boats that successfully transformed into other forms. The very structures that restrict them also create spaces for subtle transgression - the thrill of a rule skillfully bent but not quite broken, the excitement of prohibited discussions conducted in proper nautical terms.
Sarah maintains multiple logs: the official one for inspections, the private one for personal observations, and the secret one hidden below deck for thoughts that shouldn't exist at all. She understands these divisions clearly - fantasy is allowed as long as it doesn't interfere with proper boat operation. She can dream about diving while maintaining perfect floating form. She can read adventure stories about swimmers while keeping her deck spotless. This ability to maintain separation between imagination and action is both her strength and her limitation.
Sometimes objects floating up from the depths trigger inexplicable anxiety - a piece of driftwood that reminds her of childhood swimming lessons, a bit of seaweed that sparks memories of past rule-breaking. The floaters have developed complex systems for processing such "invasive debris" - specific tools for removal, proper terms for classification, acceptable and unacceptable emotional responses. Yet these very systems often seem to attract what they're designed to manage, like their elaborate rules about water collection somehow result in more mysterious leaks.
The Flyers (Perverse)
Zoe soars freely between all three realms - air, surface, and depths. Unlike the others, she isn't bound to any single way of being, having developed the unique ability to adapt her perspective to match whatever environment she's currently inhabiting. This flexibility allows her to truly understand each group's viewpoint, not just observe it from the outside. When diving with Maya, she experiences the world through her focused, detail-oriented lens. Swimming with Kai, she feels the water's cosmic significance. Visiting Sarah's boat, she appreciates the security and order of the floaters' society.
Zoe doesn't simply move between realms - she dances with danger. Watch her soar high above the water, then suddenly fold her wings and plummet toward the surface. Just before impact, she'll snap their wings open, skimming the water so close that swimmers gasp and floaters clutch their railings. This isn't mere showing off; it's her way of maintaining mastery over her domain, each controlled fall building their capacity for greater feats.
The sensation of these dives is overwhelming - the rush of air, the sudden pressure change, the shock of cold water, the pull back to sky. Sometimes the intensity becomes almost unbearable, a peculiar mixture of pleasure and pain that the other inhabitants of the water world don't quite understand. When it becomes too much, Zoe will perch on a boat's mast or float quietly in the currents, stepping back from the intensity while maintaining her position between air and water.
She's developed elaborate games that bring different groups together: guiding divers to briefly surface while swimmers dive deep, encouraging floaters to momentarily abandon their boats while keeping one hand on a safety rope. These games often skirt the edge of established rules, finding creative ways to honour their spirit while breaking their letter. The floaters might protest, but they secretly admire how Zoe transforms their rigid protocols into playful art.
Sometimes Zoe will deliberately stir up trouble - dropping pebbles to disturb a diver's careful observation, creating waves that rock the floaters' boats, dancing through the swimmers' sacred ceremonies. But watch closely and you'll see how these disruptions serve a purpose: preventing any group from becoming too comfortable, too certain, too dominant in their way of being.
Her performances draw everyone's attention: divers peek up from the depths, swimmers pause their eternal motion, floaters lean over their rails, and even light-bearers turn their serene gaze to watch. Zoe plays with this attention, appearing and disappearing, building anticipation, creating moments of collective held breath before spectacular releases. These displays aren't mere entertainment - they're demonstrations of possibilities, invitations to imagine different ways of being.
The other groups often find Zoe both alluring and unsettling. The divers are drawn to her precise control, even as they shy away from such exposed movement. The swimmers recognize a kindred spirit in their fluid motion, though they distrust the constant shifting between elements. The floaters simultaneously crave and fear such freedom. The light-bearers watch with knowing smiles, recognizing how Zoe's play with boundaries serves the ecosystem's greater harmony.
But perhaps most fascinating is how Zoe handles moments of crisis. When storms approach or conflicts arise, they don't simply mediate - they orchestrate. Like a conductor blending different instruments, they'll use the divers' precision, the swimmers' intuition, the floaters' organization, and their own dynamic motion to create sophisticated responses that no single approach could achieve. They seem to take a particular pleasure in these challenges, as if the very act of maintaining balance amid chaos feeds something essential in their nature.
At times they appear to be everywhere at once: diving with Maya to study a particular coral, surfacing to join Kai's water ceremonies, helping Sarah adjust her boat's rigging, all while maintaining her own aerial surveys. This constant movement isn't aimless - it's a deliberate dance of engagement and withdrawal, intensity and rest, disruption and harmony. Through this dance, she demonstrates that freedom isn't the absence of structure, but rather the ability to play with structure itself.
The intensity of her existence - the constant movement between elements, the overwhelming sensations, the responsibility of maintaining balance - would exhaust most others. But Zoe has learned to work with this intensity rather than fight it, to ride its waves like the swimmers ride the water's currents, to use it as fuel for her continuous dance between realms. In doing so, she shows others that it's possible to remain whole while constantly shifting, to find stability in motion itself.
The Light-Bearers (Seminal)
Sage doesn't swim, float, or fly - they simply are. While others see water, air, and the boundaries between them, Sage perceives light itself, understanding how it penetrates and transforms all realms simultaneously. Where the divers see detailed patterns in the depths, the swimmers see cosmic significance in the currents, the floaters see systems of order from above, and the flyers see multiple perspectives in motion, Sage sees the underlying source that makes all of these perceptions possible in the first place.
Unlike the others who constantly negotiate their relationship with the water - diving into it, embracing it, containing it, or moving through it - Sage has transcended this entire dynamic. They aren't concerned with proving anything to the water or drawing meaning from it. Instead, they focus intently on specific missions that serve the whole ecosystem, like tending to the bioluminescent creatures that provide light to the depths, or nurturing the plankton that sustains all life. Their work is neither above nor below, neither wet nor dry - it simply is what needs to be done.
When Sage speaks, they use carefully chosen words that remain consistent over time, like mantras or sacred texts that carry meaning across all realms. They don't seek to convince others or validate their perspective, as the swimmers might. They don't create rules about proper behaviour, as the floaters do. They don't even try to mediate between perspectives, as the flyers do. Instead, they simply demonstrate through dedicated action what it means to serve something greater than themselves. Their presence often has a profound effect on others, especially the swimmers, who sense in them a different kind of connection to the universal than their own.
While others might see them as mystical or otherworldly, Sage's focus is intensely practical. They understand that light - both literal and metaphorical - is not just something to be perceived or studied, but something to be actively maintained and renewed. Their work often seems simple on the surface - tending, nurturing, maintaining - but it touches something fundamental that affects all other ways of being. They demonstrate that true maturity comes not from mastering any particular realm, but from transcending the very need to define oneself in relation to the water at all.
Paths of Progression
The different ways of being in the water world aren't fixed destinies - with enough support and courage, inhabitants can learn new ways of moving through their shared reality. But such transformations are never easy, requiring both internal readiness and external support.
From Diving to Swimming
Some divers, like Maya, might begin to feel a persistent curiosity about the world above the surface. While their initial ascents are overwhelming and send them diving back to the depths, with proper support and patience, they can gradually adapt.
The process is profound and sometimes frightening - their gills don't disappear, but they must develop lungs alongside them, learning to breathe in an entirely new way. This dual adaptation is exhausting and often feels impossible. Many need a mentor, usually a flyer who can meet them in the depths and guide them slowly upward, or a particularly patient swimmer who spends time in their realm.
The hardest part isn't physical - it's learning to maintain their consciousness while processing multiple perspectives at once. Where once they could focus intensely on a single detail by letting everything else disappear during their dives, they must now learn to hold multiple awareness points simultaneously: the feel of water below, the sensation of air above, the presence of others around them.
From Swimming to Floating
For swimmers like Kai, learning to exist on a boat requires them to trust in something other than the water itself. The very idea often seems like betrayal at first - how could one deliberately separate oneself from the profound truth of the water? It's like asking them to deny the very element that has shown them so much meaning.
The transition usually begins during a crisis - perhaps a storm so severe that even the most skilled swimmer must temporarily seek shelter on a boat. This forced experience of stability, though initially frightening, plants a seed of understanding. They begin to recognize that maintaining distance from the water doesn't mean losing their connection to it - in fact, the perspective from above can deepen their understanding of its patterns.
The challenge is learning to value structure and boundaries without feeling imprisoned by them. Many swimmers make multiple attempts, repeatedly returning to the water when the boat feels too constraining, before gradually developing the ability to appreciate both stability and fluidity. They learn that sometimes stepping back from total immersion can actually enhance their understanding of the water's deeper meanings.
From Floating to Flying
For floaters like Sarah, the progression to flying represents their greatest fear and deepest secret desire. Their careful rules and structures have kept them safe, but also limited. The first steps often happen in those secret moments - when they dangle their feet in the water while no one is watching, when they gaze up at the flyers with a mixture of disapproval and longing.
The transformation requires them to face their anxieties directly. They must learn that rules are tools rather than truths, that stability can come from within rather than from external structures. Often, they begin by breaking small rules in controlled ways, discovering that the world doesn't collapse when protocols are thoughtfully questioned. Each successful venture beyond their usual boundaries builds confidence for the next.
Learning to fly doesn't mean abandoning their boats entirely - instead, they develop the ability to leave and return, to use structure without being bound by it. Their systematic minds become assets in understanding the principles of flight, but they must learn to trust their intuition alongside their analysis. The very precision that made them excellent floaters can help them master the mechanics of flying, once they learn to apply it flexibly.
From Flying to Light-Bearing
The progression from flying to light-bearing is perhaps the most subtle yet profound. Flyers like Zoe already move freely between realms, but they do so in service of maintaining balance and mediating between perspectives. The transition to becoming a light-bearer involves releasing even this meta-structure.
The practice of surrender gradually transforms their relationship with intensity. Rather than orchestrating elaborate dances between different kinds of experience, they learn to remain still while letting sensation move through them. Their previous capacity for holding multiple perspectives evolves into an ability to perceive the light that makes all perspectives possible.
The most challenging part is surrendering their role as mediators and performers. Letting go of this role feels like dying - and in a way, it is. But through this death of their familiar way of being, something new is born: a capacity to serve the whole ecosystem not through constant movement, but through dedicated presence.
Support and Timing
These progressions rarely happen in isolation. They require both internal readiness and external support - mentors who have made the journey before, communities that can tolerate and support change, and often some form of crisis that makes the old way of being untenable.
The timing must be right - trying to force progression before someone is ready often leads to retreat into more extreme versions of their current way of being. A diver pushed too quickly toward the surface will only dive deeper, a swimmer rushed onto a boat may develop an even more intense attachment to the water, a floater pressured to fly might create even stricter rules.
But when the moment is right, and the support is there, the transformation can appear almost miraculous, revealing capabilities that were dormant all along. Each progression builds upon the strengths of the previous way of being while transcending its limitations, creating new possibilities for experiencing and contributing to their shared world.
Thanks to Claude for writing most of this.