Lipton’s Journal/February 22, 1955/661

I have postulated consciousness as a sup function, and instead of the psychoanalytical topography of a super-ego on top, an ego in the middle, and the unconscious beneath, I see mind-and-body as being filled with an infinity of er-sup matings, the vast majority so automatic, so controlled by the Juggler, that consciousness as such, sup-expression is unnecessary.

But what I do believe is that there are dialectical layers of er-sup, each the progressive antithesis of the one above. Thus, our consciousness at any given period is a sup expression of an er-drive in one layer or another. Which would account for contradictory state of consciousness, conscious dilemmas, etc. Conscious ideas which come from the deep layers of the psyche-soma invariably come through with exceptionally low fidelity—they are either clichés or mechanical inventions—the deeper the layer of er, the more total is the sup, and hence the er-expression which is vaster and vaster the deeper one goes comes through in exceptionally crude form.

Nonetheless, the descent into the er is in varying people capable of being digested into make-give sup active expressions, often with great elaboration. Freud and Marx for example. But it is done at the price of anxiety. As a general concept, anxiety is released by going from er-sup state of n to er-sup state of n plus 1. People in psychic motion (contraction inward) are always anxious—the expansion outward which is sup-dominated is always contented and joyous (all other things being equal) for the sup is now regaining domination.

Which is why artists are unhappy takers. They know that for them to take is dangerous since they will make and give from what they take—hence most artists are close to phallic narcissists in that they dislike taking. Only the person who is pretty certain they are not going to make and give can enjoy taking. “You look like a cat that’s just licked its milk.”

I’ve expressed the above very poorly, but I can just about reach what I wish to say. I wonder if I’ll understand a word of it five years from now.